


This is Not an Exit

by Portrait_of_a_Fool



Series: You Are My Sunshine [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Dark, Explicit Language, Gore, M/M, Masochism, Murder, Sadism, Sadomasochism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-25
Updated: 2014-01-12
Packaged: 2017-10-17 06:36:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 29,674
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/173964
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Portrait_of_a_Fool/pseuds/Portrait_of_a_Fool
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>First, there's a sucking hole inside of Sam and then there's an itch in the back of his mind. Finding a way to fill one up and scratch the other leads him down some strange roads. Funny thing is, after a while, he starts to enjoy it. A lot.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is canon compliant all the way up to 6x11, however, there is one major difference. It's nothing bad--in fact, it's rather likable--but it's there.
> 
>  _Please_ read the warnings on this carefully and heed them, they're there for a reason. You've been warned and if you choose to read after doing so then you do it at your own discretion.

_“You see, I take the parts that I remember and stitch them back together_  
 _to make a creature that will do what I say or love me back._  
 _I’m not really sure why I do it, but in this version you are_ not   
_feeding yourself to a bad man.”_

— Richard Siken   
“Litany in Which Certain Things Are Crossed Out”

Three AM to a person who never sleeps is a very boring time of night. All of his days and nights have started to bleed and melt together now and the only thing Sam really knows is “light” or “dark”. At least until this time of morning then he seems irretrievably stuck in the hour, idling about and pacing the floor in his bare feet as silently as he can to keep from waking Dean. It’s during this time of night that Sam spends remembering in earnest. It may be even less like remembering and more like reliving.

Sam remembers a lot of things about who he was before the whole business of losing his soul. Or having it held hostage. Whatever. That part doesn’t matter anyway. What _matters_ (as subjective of a word that is) is that Sam remembers _everything_. He remembers Stanford and Jessica Moore. He remembers their dad and what a drunken asshole he could be sometimes. He also remembers him playing hide and seek with him and Dean in a field full of black-eyed Susans. Goody for happy memories and sad memories and all of the in between memories, but none of that shit is really important.

What _is_ important to Sam is Dean—or rather the memory and idea of Dean. Dean has been the one glaring constant throughout Sam’s life. Dean, who sometimes looks at him like he thinks about cutting his head off—he’s said as much anyway. Dean who looks at him like he’s… he’s… hmm. Sam has to pause in his thoughts to think of the correct word.

There it is: Dean looks at him like he’s _sad_ to see Sam the way he is now.

Something else that Sam remembers though is that Dean used to love him. No, he didn’t just love him, he was _in love_ with him and Sam was in love with him right back. That may account for some of that sadness Sam sees in him sometimes. 

Sam can no longer feel love, but he remembers it. He remembers how it felt; how bad it hurt and how good it could be, too. He remembers being a teenager and thinking about how green Dean’s eyes are. He remembers Dean snuggling next to him one cold winter night in Wisconsin because there was no heat and nowhere else for them to sleep anyway. He’d curled up so close to Sam that he could feel Dean’s erection pressing against the small of his back. He’d lain awake until the dawn turned the winter sky sickly grey-blue thinking about it and wanting to touch, but not quite daring.

He remembers, too, the spring thaw of that same year and a conversation he overhead. Actually, it wasn’t much of a conversation; it was more of a warning. Their dad was cleaning a shotgun on the sagging front stoop and Dean was contentedly sharpening a knife. Then he casually laid the gun across his knees and quietly said, “I see how you look at him, Dean.”

Dean froze for a split second, but then went back to his knife sharpening. “I don’t know what you mean, sir.”

“You’re a liar,” John said back, still keeping a casual, conversational tone. “The way you look at your brother ain’t right and you know it.”

“I don’t—”

He backhanded Dean so hard that Sam, watching from the glass panes set in the front door, had seen the blood fly out of his mouth. John moved so quickly that the gun didn’t even slide on his lap.

“It ain’t right,” John repeated after settling back.

Dean nodded and then went back to sharpening his knife. Sam had watched his throat work as he’d swallowed the blood while trying to keep his shaking hands steady.

That hadn’t served to stop Dean. In fact it seemed to have done the opposite because two days later, the bruise black at the corner of Dean’s mouth, he’d pressed young Sam up against a wall and kissed him. He’d been in the hallway waiting for Sam to come out of the bathroom after brushing his teeth for the night. Sam can still remember the taste of beer and marijuana in Dean’s mouth and how he’d kissed him back.

They’re really fascinating details all around.

Sam stops his pacing at the foot of Dean’s bed and stands there, staring at him in the yellow light seeping through the heat-warped blinds. Dean calls it creepy, this staring thing, but Sam doesn’t get why that it is. He’s just looking. He doesn’t look at Dean very much, he’s not actually taken a moment to really give him a good once—or twice or third look—over.

Most of the time Dean is only noise and flannel and whiskey-smell to Sam. When he’s quiet and still, sleeping without a shirt on and snoring softly, he’s something else though. He’s tan and scarred, lean, but muscular. He’s very attractive and Sam can understand perfectly well why he’d once wanted this man who is also his brother so badly. He understands that there was once a lot of shame involved in wanting each other the way they did. Shame that devolved to tears more than once and the cold steel blade of a very sharp knife to his wrist one time. Sam thinks that’s a pity as he tilts his head and watches Dean smack his lips gently in his sleep. So much time was wasted feeling bad about… What? Wanting something beautiful and taking it?

He blinks slowly in the gloom, still as one of the shadows thrown up along the walls and touches his tongue to his top lip as he thinks. Once, Sam had Dean’s heart, not a place in it or a piece of it; he had the whole thing. Now he barely occupies a corner of it. He can’t help but wonder if he can get Dean’s heart back; have the whole thing for himself.

Dean’s afraid of him and on edge with him too much now as it is and Sam finds it irritating when held beside all of his memories. Memories of Dean laughing and ruffling his hair. Memories of Dean’s breath hitching as he told Sam how to finger him open the very first time. Sam still has the memory of the elation he’d felt at getting it right; at having made Dean’s voice crack like that.

That was when he’d owned Dean’s heart though; the whole thing had been Sam’s to do with as he’d pleased. He wants that again, but he doesn’t know how he to get it back. If he can have Dean’s heart again then perhaps having a soul will cease to matter. If he can make Dean love him then maybe Sam can make himself love Dean back. If he remembers it then surely he can fake it until it no longer matters. Also, if he’s being honest, Sam wants to know if he can make Dean scream his name. It’s something he feels he should look into.

The art of wooing though, now that’s the catch because Sam doesn’t even know where to begin with that. He’s never had to woo Dean before and Dean is not like the girls he made overtures to when he was a real boy. Sam knows that you give girls flowers and candy, you open the door for them and under no circumstances do you ever say that yes, their ass does look fat in those jeans. There’s also the small matter of competition now.

Before, Sam had never needed to compete for Dean’s affections, but now he has to. There’s Lisa and Ben and the cocktail waitress that gave Dean her number tonight. It’s on the nightstand under Dean’s wallet; Sam can just make out the faint impression of her whore-red lipstick below the number. Her name is Sadie Walker and Dean said he may call her up tomorrow. Sam thinks that may be because Dean’s trying to move on and put Lisa behind him now, at least the best he can anyway.

What all of that boils down to is that she’s in Sam’s way and he needs to move her and anyone else that could cause interference out of the picture if he’s going to get Dean back. Frankly, Sam’s glad to have found something to do with his time now in the pre-dawn hours. Quiet as a mouse, he takes the napkin from beneath Dean’s wallet, looks at the name to make sure he’s got it right and then puts the napkin back.

It’s short work from there, a quick peek at the phone book and Sam has her address, too. He takes up the car keys and gives Dean one last look before he walks out of the room with a knife sheathed at his back.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Sam’s leaving the home of the late Sadie Walker of Peoria when he hears a slight rustling sound from the yard next door. He freezes where he’s at, the garbage bag filled with his other supplies—bags for his feet so he didn’t track blood all over, his soiled over shirt and the hair net he bought at the quickie mart on his way to visit—hangs at his side. His free hand goes for the freshly washed knife at his back and he approaches the low chain link fence slowly. The sound comes again and then the fence clanks as something hits it.

Sam looks down and can just make out the shape of a puppy. Huffing out a soft curse, he sheathes the knife again and leans over the fence for a better look. Dark eyes glitter back at him from a black face. It’s almost too dark for Sam to tell, but he thinks the little dog is a Doberman. Reaching out, he scratches the top of the puppy’s head and thinks. Sam figures Dobermans are pretty manly dogs and they’re definitely not candy or flowers. After a moment spent pondering all of that, Sam stoops down some more and picks the puppy up, tucking it under his arm like a furry football. The dog is the perfect way to start wooing Dean. 

He stops at a shanty town just as dawn is starting to lighten the sky and pays an old drunk man fifty dollars to let him use the trash can fire he’s got roaring to burn all of the evidence. When he’s done, Sam thanks the man, snaps his neck and takes his fifty dollars back. Leaving behind any kind of witness is just bad form and besides, he needs that money for dog food now.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Dean is sitting cross-legged in the middle of his bed looking at the puppy. The puppy looks back. Then Dean looks over at Sam sitting at the cheap dinette table, watching the whole scene.

“You got me a dog,” Dean says, the words flat with shock.

“Yes,” Sam says.

“You got me a _dog_.” He looks at the puppy again and he wiggles his little stump of a tail as he stands up on the bed. Dean looks at the bandages wrapped around its cropped ears and touches one lightly. “It’s broken.”

“No, it’s ears have been posted,” Sam says. “I looked it up this morning, it’s a common practice with these dogs; totally legit.”

Dean pokes the puppy on the end of the nose and the puppy licks his finger. Sam sees the almost-smile that crinkles at the corners of Dean’s eyes and lets out a breath. He thinks his gift, while it got off to a rocky start, is going to be accepted after all.

“There’s something wrong with you.” Dean turns to point at him and Sam raises an eyebrow. “I don’t just mean the part about you not having a soul either. What made you think I wanted a dog?”

“It’s a gift, people give them all the time,” Sam says. “To express congratulations, they give them for special events like a birthday or holiday, to make their intentions of courtship known. To say they’re thinking of someone or to tell them that they love them. All kinds of things.”

“Courtship?”

“It was just an example.”

“Right.” Dean absently scratches the back of the puppy’s neck. “What’s your reason?”

Sam has to think quick. He can’t tell Dean that he’s trying to woo him, that would sound absurd and besides, Dean wouldn’t believe him anyway. “It’s to take your mind off other things.”

“Like what, Sam?” Dean snaps as he moves his hand to scratch down the puppy’s back.

“You know, _things_ , like the Lisa situation, stuff like that,” Sam offers.

“Uh-huh and you think a dog is going to just magically solve all my problems?” Dean asks.

“It’s a start, right? It’ll give you something to do. You can train it and feed it and make sure it gets its vet check-ups,” Sam says.

“I can clean up its poop and pay extra when he pees all over the bed…”

“Stop being so negative.” He’s starting to think maybe Dean’s going to be a harder sell than he first thought. “Just enjoy the dog; he’s a gift. From me to you.”

“And where did you get this gift of mine anyway?” Dean asks. “Dobermans don’t exactly grow on trees.”

No, they grow in the backyards of working class neighborhoods. Sam thinks his little joke is funny, but he also thinks it’s best not to say that out loud. “I found him.”

“More like “stole him”.” He finally smiles when the puppy rolls over on its back, showing Dean his belly while waving his awkward, rust-colored paws in the air. He sighs and scratches the dog’s chest. “Fine.”

“So you accept the gift?” Sam asks.

“Yes, you weirdo, I’ll keep the dog you stole.” Dean tilts his head in thought. “Now what to name him?”

“Whatever you want, he’s your dog.” Sam gives Dean a big, encouraging smile.

“That you stole,” Dean adds.

“Semantics.” Sam stands up and pulls his wallet out to count his money. “I’m hungry. Let’s grab breakfast. You can think on a name while we eat.”

“Yeah, okay,” Dean says. He pats the puppy again as he stands up then looks over at Sam counting his money by the door and says, “Where’d you get so much money?”

Sam looks down at the wad in his hand and shrugs. Sadie Walker made good tips, what can he say? “I’ve been saving it.”

He waits for Dean to say something about him stealing the money, too, but thankfully he leaves it alone and Sam tucks the wad back in his pocket.

They’re sitting in the diner and Dean’s eating a lumberjack breakfast. Sam is picking at a short stack of pancakes and tempted to ask the waitress if they used rubber cement for the batter. However, he’s preoccupied and wondering how he should attempt to woo Dean next. Wooing is a lot like work and it’s even harder when he doesn’t have a soul because he’s less likely to be taken seriously with any of his efforts.

So, Sam lays his fork down on his plate and clears his throat. Dean has half a strip of bacon hanging out his mouth when he looks up and grunts something at Sam he takes to be, _What?_

“You remember that time in Santa Fe?” Sam asks.

Dean furrows his brow as he finishes his bacon and then says, “You need to be more specific, Sammy.”

Then he stops and gets this _look_ on his face. Sam hates that look. He knows it’s because Dean just slipped up and called him “Sammy”. Dean doesn’t call him that anymore unless it slips out like it just did. To Dean, Sam isn’t _Sammy_ , he’s just some asshole wearing his brother’s face. But Sam _is_ still Sammy and he adds that to his To-Do List: making Dean call him that again without looking like he’s just bitten into something very bitter. 

Sam pushes his plate out of the way and folds his hands calmly on the sticky tabletop. He carefully schools his features into a look of benign patience—it had taken him three hours practicing in front of the mirror to get all the nuances right. Then he says, “I mean that time I fucked you against the side of the barroom. You remember how the wall was blue stucco?”

Dean knocks over his orange juice with a loud, “Sonofa—!”

Sam cocks his head. “Well, do you?”

“Do I? Oh man, I am not having this conversation with you.” Dean grabs a handful of napkins to mop up his spilled juice. “What the hell? You don’t just dump that on people.”

“It’s okay, Dean.” Sam watches the tips of Dean’s ears turn red. He reaches under the table and squeezes Dean’s knee, making him kick his leg out when he jumps at the touch.

“Stop it, you freak,” Dean says then clears his throat.

He’s nervous and getting angry, Sam makes a note of that and decides it doesn’t matter. He’s wooing here. Actually, right now he’s trying to _seduce_ , but it’s not going so hot. He’ll have to try something new; maybe a little more subtlety is what he needs. That’s assuming his patience will hold out for him to test the theory. 

Sam takes out his wad of stolen money, counts out a tip and then goes to pay the bill while Dean sits there trying to catch his breath. The least he can do is buy Dean’s breakfast, that’s part of courting and he’s trying to curry favor. Sam understands that in order to “make time” with someone, he has to be willing to go the distance. Maybe he should get Dean another gift, it’s too soon after the puppy right now and he doesn’t want to appear desperate, but soon. Maybe a bottle of good whiskey. The upside to that idea is that Dean may loosen up if he’s drunk, too. Hell, Sam knows he will and if he can get his defenses down then his chances of getting in his pants increase exponentially. The downside is that Dean will probably still look at him like he’s a fucking alien bent on destroying Earth and making its inhabitants into his mindless slaves. It’s actually rather negligible, as far as downsides go.

Sam fakes a smile for the dumb twat at the register and thinks that maybe he’ll ask him about that time in Wisconsin next; the first time after Dad hit Dean. It’s best to start at the beginning, after all. The woman takes his money and passes him his change. Then she pops her gum really loudly. She’s been doing it since they walked in the place and Sam’s had _enough_.

“I hope you choke on that, you stupid skank,” he says pleasantly. He watches as her eyes widen to roughly the size of saucers and smiles. He’s about to tell her exactly how to go about choking herself to death on the gum, but then Dean’s there, grabbing him by the elbow and hauling him to the door.

“Okay, time to say bye-bye now,” Dean says with a huge smile. When they’re outside, he lets Sam go. “Stop doing that!” he yells.

Sam blinks at him. “Doing what?”

“Being such a dick to people, that’s what.” Dean runs a hand over his hair. “You can’t do that shit. How many times have I told you that?”

“Her gum annoyed me though, I thought that was okay,” Sam explains and blinks again.

“You still don’t get to tell people you hope they die just because they aggravate you,” Dean says while jabbing a finger at him.

Dean points a lot, Sam’s noticed this. He bats his hand away and goes to the car, head tilted as he thinks about all of that. There are so many _rules_ and he does not get the point of _any of them_. Sure, they have their place like on the job or if Sam is trying to get someone to give him something without causing a fuss. But a girl behind the counter in a diner? How does that apply at all?

When Dean gets in the car, Sam has a response ready. He turns to look at Dean and says, “I could’ve just killed her, you know.”

“Who?” Dean gives him a suspicious look.

“The moron in the diner, I could’ve killed her. But,” Sam holds up a finger and smiles at Dean like he should be proud of him. “I didn’t. I just told her I _hoped_ she died.”

“Your logic is seriously scary,” Dean says as he cranks the car. He puts it in gear and backs out of the lot. “If that can even be called logic.”

“It’s perfectly logical,” Sam assures him then turns his head to look out the window.

“I need to get dog food,” Dean says.

“So get dog food,” Sam says. He’s being amiable. “Did you think of a name for him yet?”

“I think so, yeah.”

Sam watches him from the corner of his eye. Dean’s smiling again, it’s a small smile, but it’s still a smile. 

“So what is it?”

“Kilgore.”

“What?”

“ _Kilgore_ , ya know, like Kilgore Trout.” Dean rolls his hand in a “come on, you know this” motion. “Vonnegut?”

“Oh,” Sam says when it clicks and he nods. “Nice choice.”

“I think so,” Dean says.

He does look very pleased. Stolen puppies make great gifts. Sam wonders if Dean would like a cat, too. There’s bound to be one somewhere that that no one would miss. The damn things are _everywhere_ , Sam’s noticed this.

“So, hey, do you like cats?” Sam asks because, well, the puppy was a lucky venture. He doesn’t want to get Dean a cat that he won’t use though.

“They’re all right, why?” Dean flips on his blinker to turn into the local super Wal-Mart’s parking lot.

“Just wondering,” Sam says. “Any specific kind?”

“Ah… what are you getting at here?” Dean turns to look at Sam again, one eyebrow half-raised.

“I’m not getting at _anything_ ,” Sam says as he folds his hands in his lap. “Just making conversation.”

“Well, you’re doing it wrong,” Dean says. He cuts someone off to slide the Impala into a slot near the front.

“I didn’t realize you could get a conversation wrong.” Sam gives Dean a flat look.

Dean grins at him and claps him on the shoulder. “You learn something new every day.”

Sam frowns at Dean and wonders for a moment why it is he wants to fuck him after all. Then he glances at his mouth and there: he remembers again. They get out of the car and as they go, Sam says, “I heard Dad that time.”

At Dean’s questioning look, Sam says, “When he told you the way you looked at me was wrong.”

Dean gets kind of pale and Sam frowns again. What did he do this time?

“Just stop, Sam.”

When Dean scrubs at his face, Sam notices his hands shaking and his frown gets deeper. He just can’t win here.

“I’m sorry?”

“You’re damn right you are.” Dean strides ahead of him. Sam lets him go and watches his ass as he walks across the parking lot. It’s a nice ass.

Sam catches up with Dean in the pet food aisle and stands there; looking at all the shit people buy for their pets. He picks up a doggy sweater with tiara on it and then throws it back down. This is ridiculous. No dog needs anything with sparkles, glitter or “Princess” written on it in the aforementioned sparkles and glitter.

The dog does need a collar and a leash though, so while Dean is perusing the kibble and ignoring Sam, he goes to get those items. When he comes back, he watches as Dean picks up a stainless steel food bowl and another for water then declares that they’re done here.

“They had one in camo.” Sam shows the collar to Dean before he can walk away again.

“Cool,” Dean says. He takes the collar and matching leash to look at them. He will not, however, actually look at Sam and he huffs out a breath. “Carry this,” Dean says after he drags a fifty pound sack of puppy chow of the shelf that he heaves at Sam before he can actually answer. 

“Sure.” Sam catches the bag though and fights down the urge to throw it back in Dean’s face.

He’s still being amiable, but he’s being agreeable now as well. Something he said didn’t sit well with Dean and he wants to know what it is. If he’s going to do this and do it right then he needs all of the resources available to him. Refusing to carry Kilgore’s kibble will not win him any points. Sam thinks he may be in the negative as far as points are concerned anyway.

They walk through the store, pausing so Dean can get himself a pack of new socks and then resume their way towards the registers. They check out and Sam pays for the food, the collar and leash _and_ Dean’s socks. Dean grunts a “thanks” at him and Sam takes that as a good sign. He can now pursue his goal with a little less resistance once more.

He doesn’t say anything until they get back to the motel and Dean has the puppy fed and collared. “He likes his chow,” Dean says.

Sam notes that he looks very pleased. “I’m sure he was getting pretty hungry.”

Dean nods. “Yeah, poor Kilgore probably hasn’t eaten since last night before you stole him.”

“Let it go, Dean.” Sam stretches his legs out under the dinette table. “You like him and that’s… that’s what counts.”

“Uh-huh.” Dean gives him a weird look then glances away again. “I think I’m gonna call Sadie up and see if she wants to go out for drinks.”

“She’s a waitress in a bar; every time she goes to work she’s going out for drinks more or less.” Sam almost smiles because Sadie and Dean won’t be going _anywhere_ for _anything_. That’s his little secret though, yes indeed.

“This is totally different,” Dean says as he picks up the lipstick-printed napkin.

“Not really,” Sam says.

Dean calling her is enough to annoy him, but he has to stay cool. It’s not like he can go have drinks with the bitch if her throat is cut. Sam hums under his breath as Dean dials and then watches as the phone rings and rings and rings. Sam bets they haven’t even found the body yet. It’ll be a couple of days, the people at her work will start to worry, maybe some boyfriend who’s really a glorified fuck buddy will drop in for a quickie. Maybe her Great Aunt Tilly will stop by to ask Sadie if she’d like to accompany her to her colonoscopy—family fun in a nutshell there.

Regardless of the scenario they’ll be gone and Dean will never have any idea that the girl he wanted to blow him was laying in her bed with her throat split open in a sloppy smile. She was easy and Sam figures almost all of them will be. Ben and Lisa are going to be the hardest jobs to pull, but he’ll move them out of his way, too. Then Dean will be sad, but he’ll be sad and he’ll belong to _Sam_ again. That’s what really counts.

“No answer?” Sam asks.

“Nope,” Dean says.

“Well, try her again later.” Sam offers a sliver of a smile. If he’s going to have to deal with this then he may as well make a game of it; keep himself entertained and all that. “Maybe you’ll get her then. It is kind of early still and she works late.”

“True.” Dean brightens at that.

Score goes to Sam.

“Look, I do want to talk to you about some stuff though,” Sam says and Dean tenses up again. _Great_ , every angle he’s approached this from has presented him with a brick wall. “Just… I want to ask you… What happened to us?”

Dean doesn’t say anything for a long time and while Sam’s impatient for his answer, he makes himself wait. Finally, Dean makes a bitter, unhappy sound and slaps his knees just before he stands up. “Life happened, Sam. You happened. I happened. Ruby happened. The Apocalypse and Lucifer happened. Everything _happened_ and when it was all said and done… there was no _us_ anymore.”

“Why didn’t we try though?” Sam asks.

Dean shakes his head then grabs the car keys and Kilgore’s leash. “Sometimes it’s just too late to try,” Dean says as he clips the leash to the puppy’s collar and leads him to the door. “I’m taking the dog out. You… this… I cannot do this right now.”

“Too late to try,” Sam murmurs while the sound of the slamming door is still echoing in his head. Dean may think that, but Sam begs to differ.

~*~*~*~*~*~

They blow out of Peoria the next day, having laid to rest the bones of a child molester that was busy spending his afterlife trying to look up little girls’ skirts. Dean makes some remark about the guy being like Freddy Krueger, minus the knives for fingers. Sam disagrees, Freddy was cool at least as a character; Humphrey Pilldinton was just a skeevy old man.

He’s glad that they left when they did though because Missing Dog flyers had started popping up on light poles and there was a reward being offered. Sam has paper cuts all over the fingers from yanking them down as fast as he could so Dean didn’t see them. As long as he didn’t know exactly where the dog came from, Sam knew he wouldn’t try and return his gift. Besides, he’s getting attached. Sam can tell.

Come to find out, Kilgore’s original name was Duke. Sam thinks Kilgore is better all around. At least it’s kind of creative. He left a message on his former owner’s machine and told him just as much. Not that they’d stolen the man’s dog or named him Kilgore just, _How fucking stupid can you be to think that Duke is at all a cool name? There are a million and one dogs out there named that. Idiot._

Dean had walked in just as Sam had hung up the phone. He’d asked who Sam was talking to. Sam had just grabbed his face in his hands and kissed him. Dean had retaliated by head-butting him. Sam will not be dissuaded, however.


	2. Chapter 2

They’re currently in a barroom in Ohio and Sam is hustling pool while Dean asks around about the possibility of a backroom poker game. Preferably one that isn’t run by a man-witch, but Sam figures they’re safe on that front. He gets caught up in his game, focusing solely on beating the guy he’s playing. He’s not doubtful about his chances of winning, but it’s a delicate operation to lead the guy along just enough to make him think he has a chance before Sam sinks his ass. It’s kind of the best part; the look on their faces when they lose what they think is a sure thing.

He’s counting his newly won money when he looks up and finds Dean pressed against the bar by a blonde girl in a tube top. Making a sound a lot like a low growl, Sam looks on as she writes down her name and number then sticks it in Dean’s shirt pocket. Sam brushes his bangs out of his eyes and wonders if there’s a phone book in the new motel room.

Dean looks over at him and raises his beer in a toast. There must be something about the look on Sam’s face because he falters for a second, but Sam takes his cue and gives him a thumbs up with a perfectly executed roll of his eyes. He waits long enough to see if Dean buys it and when he shrugs a little before drinking from his beer, Sam knows he has. So, he turns away to rack the balls on the table again, hoping to lure at least one more schmuck in for the night before last call is yelled out.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Candace Marsfeld lives on a dark little side street near the outskirts of town. Very dangerous, security-wise, Sam thinks as he picks the lock on her back door. It’s around four in the morning and Dean’s passed out cold back in the motel room. Sam kissed him again tonight and for the briefest second, Dean had leaned into him right before he’d stomped Sam’s foot and shoved him away. It’s progress, but Sam thinks he’s going to have to pick up his game all the same. He’ll hold Dean down until he kisses him back if nothing else because he _wants_.

Edging down the narrow hall, Sam cocks his head and listens to the sound of soft snores coming from a room at the very end. He homes in on it after taking time out to listen for any other sounds. It’s just him and Candace here tonight though and Sam can live with that.

The thought makes him smile. Yes, of course he can live with that. It’s his whole reason for being here so he can stop this girl from getting in the way and interfering with his plans. He makes it to her bedroom and stands there in the moon-dappled darkness by her bedside, looking down at her. The gun in his hand is warm; it fits perfectly like the butt was made just for his palm. Candace rolls over in her sleep and stretches, flashing Sam a peek of creamy breast and an erect nipple. She sleeps naked. How quaint.

Sam cocks his head and watches her for a bit longer, how she brushes against her own breast in her sleep and makes a soft moaning sound. Sam wonders what she’s dreaming about. Maybe she’s dreaming about Dean. Sam himself hasn’t dreamed in over a year. It’s been so long he’s started to forget what it was like. He remembers some of his dreams from before and also thinks that maybe not dreaming is the best thing for him. He can’t really say that he cares anyway.

On the bed, Candace stretches again and moans once more. Then her eyes flutter open and land on Sam, widening with shock. Tilting his head to the other side, he says, “Hello,” and raises the gun.

Her mouth disappears in a spray of red just as she opens it to scream. He blows the top of her head off next and just for good measure; Sam shoots her in the chest. The bullet tears through that same creamy breast and lodges in her already dead heart. It’s overkill, sure, but he feels better for it.

After watching her twitch and jitter her way through death’s last nerve spasms, Sam takes his time going through her purse and wallet, gathering up all of the cash money he can find. He checks her freezer, too, because people hide cash there sometimes. Sure enough, there’s a small wad of cash hidden in a box of veggie burger patties. He stands by the sink to count the money by the low-wattage light on over it. When he’s done, Sam takes a moment to look around just because he can. His eyes light on a blue and red betta fish swimming in a bowl on the kitchen counter and he watches it turn its stupid circles.

“Who’s going to take care of you now?” He considers dumping the fish down the garbage disposal. _Empathy_ , he hears Dean’s voice say in his head and Sam nods. Sure. Empathy. It’s just a fucking fish, but why not?

He leaves the way he came and locks the door behind himself. Sam disappears into the night, one more shadow moving with the light fall breeze. He finds a place to dump all of his accessories then cleans the gun when he’s done with that. He reloads the clip before he puts it back in the Impala’s trunk.

Dean’s still asleep when he gets back, but Kilgore meets him by the door and licks his fingers when he crouches down to pat him. Sam smiles as he watches his brother obliviously sleep on.

The next morning, Sam is sipping at some cold coffee from the gas station across the street and watching the news. There’s a breaking story about a shocking and grisly home invasion on the south side of town early this morning. Sam sets his coffee aside and turns up the volume on the television to hear the news. There’s a little smile playing at the corners of his mouth.

Dean comes in with Kilgore and kicks the door shut just as they paste the victim’s image on the screen. Poor Candace Marsfeld, community college student and nursing school hopeful. Too bad, so sad.

Sam gestures at the television screen. “Isn’t that the girl who was trying to get all on you at the bar last night?”

Dean looks up at the television right before Candace’s smiling picture blinks off the screen and the lead anchor starts urging anyone with information to please call Crime Stoppers. “Yeah.” Dean stoops down to take Kilgore’s squeaky toy from him and throw it. “What happened?”

“She was murdered last night,” Sam says then sips from his coffee again. After lowering the cup, he adds, “And robbed.”

“Damn.” Dean shakes his head. “They got any suspects?”

Sam bends down to pretend he’s fiddling with the cuff of his jeans so Dean doesn’t see him smiling. “They don’t even have a fingerprint.”

“Poor girl,” Dean says.

“Yeah,” Sam says as he straightens up in his chair. “Poor little Candace bit it big time.”

“What have I told you about empathy?” Dean asks him as he gives Sam a _what the fuck?_ look.

Sam remembers the fish from last night and thinks he’s learning well enough. “Yeah, yeah, I got it. Poor girl, it’s a tragedy and um… I’m saddened by her untimely demise.”

“Try not to lay it on so thick, but yeah, you’ve got the right idea,” Dean says.

“Thanks so much for that vote of confidence,” Sam says, but Dean’s not listening, he’s bent over playing tug-o-war with the puppy. There’s just the narrowest strip of his naked back showing and Sam wants to _lick_ it, drag his teeth over it until he scrapes angry red lines into Dean’s skin.

Sam leans over in his chair and lays his palm across that strip of skin and Dean jumps at the feeling. “Sam…” he warns.

“Just let me, Dean.” Sam moves his fingers over Dean’s warm, smooth flesh. “You used to let me.”

“You used to be different, too,” Dean says as he jerks away from the touch. Sam curls his fingers, trying to hold on, but he only scrapes them across Dean’s skin, making him hiss in a breath. Whirling on him, Dean says, “You have got to _stop_. Do you hear me? _Stop_.”

His words are angry, but his eyes are pleading and Sam thinks he knows this word. Dean’s _heartbroken_ , that’s what it is and he’s trying to hide it under anger. But the way his eyes shimmer, turning some stormy shade of watery green, Sam sees right through his lie.

“No,” Sam says as he crowds him back towards the wall. “No, I will not _stop_.”

He looks down into Dean’s face and reaches out to brush his thumb over his bottom lip. Dean tries to bite him, but Sam’s too quick and moves his hand in time. “You think you’re the only one with memories? You think I don’t _remember_ how it _felt_?” He keeps his voice calm and his manner mild. 

Leaning closer, Sam breathes across Dean’s ear before he whispers, “I remember in the bathroom of that little shit heap apartment in Biloxi, how you swallowed me down so far I though you’d never stop. I remember you holding my hand under the blanket in the backseat while Dad drove; how you would rub your thumb over the top of my hand. I remember the taste of your mouth _the very first time_.”

Dean shudders and tries to back away from Sam more, but his back hits the wall and Sam just presses up against him. “I remember that you defied Dad, your _hero_ , for me.”

“What’s your point?” Dean’s voice is rough, choked.

“My point is that I want it _back_.” Sam snarls it against the side of Dean’s throat. “You said it was too late to try, well… well… I think you’re a liar.”

“You don’t have soul!” Dean yells.

Sam has to think quick to counter that argument. It’s tired as shit, but it still tends to shut down everything because it’s _true_. When it occurs to him what he can say, Sam bites his lip against a little smile. “I still have a heart though.”

Then he backs away, leaving Dean pressed against the wall, looking a little wild-eyed and unsure for the first time since Sam started trying to win him back. Then Dean blinks and it’s gone. He gives Sam an ugly look and shakes his head as he pushes away from the wall.

“You really expect me to believe that?” Dean says around a humorless laugh. “You have a _heart_? I have met demons with more heart than you have these days, man.”

Dean points at him and Sam thinks he should start keeping count of how many times a day Dean sees fit to jab a finger at him. There is the briefest moment where he wants to snatch his hand out and break Dean’s finger because _fuck him_ for figuring it out. If he stays calm and works this angle though, he thinks he can eventually wear Dean down. It’ll just take some finesse and patience. So much patience. The harder he tries, the more the damage he’s caused—the damage _they’ve_ caused—reveals itself. 

“I have my memories,” Sam says. He holds his hands out his sides in a pantomime of beseeching. “I have those and I remember what everything felt like. I remember your face in the summertime, standing by the side of the road and you smiled _at me_. I want that back, Dean, it’s the truth.”

“Somewhere in that weird fucking head of yours, you’ve decided you want to bang your big brother again. Maybe it’s what? A novelty thing?” Dean laughs that humorless laugh again. “You want to _fuck me_ , Sam, it’s the truth.”

“There’s nothing wrong with that,” Sam says. “Have you looked in a mirror?” 

That’s the wrong thing to say though because Dean’s turning away from him with a muttered, “Go back to hell, you bastard.”

Sam huffs out a breath and grabs Dean’s arm. He draws back to punch him and Sam just blinks. He sees the torment in his eyes, but doesn’t know what to call it. “That’s not all I want,” Sam says and tightens his grip on Dean’s wrist unconsciously. He’s holding onto him hard enough to leave a bruise, but he will not let him go until Dean listens.

“I want _you_ , the way I used to have you. You loved me once, I remember that, too and I remember how that used to make me feel. You wanna know what _this_ feels like to me?” 

“My guess is that it feels like you don’t have a soul, which means you don’t feel anything.” Dean yanks at the grip Sam has on his arm, but he doesn’t budge.

Sam smiles at him, the expression sharp and feral as he jerks Dean close to his face. “You’re wrong.” His voice tight with anger and eyes glittering in his face. “I can feel emptiness just like you can feel love. It’s this sucking hole inside of me that can’t be filled up. It’s a pain that is constant and sharp and it’s _cold_. It’s like I still have Lucifer’s ice inside of me and I don’t know how to be warm anymore. _That_ is what it feels like.”

He shoves Dean away and watches dispassionately as he stumbles and has to catch himself on the side of his bed. “All I have left is the memory of warmth and you were that warmth. So no, I don’t just want to fuck you. I only consider that to be a bonus.”

“You’re not my brother,” Dean says.

That, too, is something Sam is sick of hearing. “I’m the closest thing to one you have left.”

He’s going to have to start all over again because he’s probably just undone every little bit of work he’s accomplished. He’s also told the truth for a change and he feels… nothing… but a twinge of irritation.

In the end, it’s Sam who walks out on Dean, leaving him standing by the bed, shaking and watching Sam from the corner of his eye.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Sam eats at a small mom-and-pop type restaurant that promises home-cooked meals. The pot roast is dry and the gravy is too salty, but the mashed potatoes are good. Sam still doesn’t leave a tip because home-cooked, _right_. His ass it is. He doesn’t actually have much to hold up against it as far as home-cooked goes, but Sam likes to think home-cooked meals are warm and satisfying and good at least.

He leaves the restaurant and walks east toward the little park he noticed when they first blew into town; it’s a nice park, as far as parks go. Sam walks around aimlessly for a while and finds a pigeon with a broken wing flopping around by the merry-go-round. He stomps its head, tells himself its empathy at work again because the bird was injured. On the swings a little girl sees him and screams. Sam stomps the bird again while he smiles at the kid and then admits to himself that he just wanted to kill something. Murder is about the only thing that makes that sucking hole in his chest stop twisting around inside of him like a cyclone for a little while. 

The little girl is still screaming for her mommy when Sam walks out of the park’s north side and takes the first left he comes to. He sees a man going up his front doorsteps and stands on the other side of the street watching him lug his groceries in. It’s early in the evening and the neighborhood is pretty deserted because people are still off with their kids attending to their after-school activities or rushing through the grocery store. Any number of things, really.

It’s just Sam and the man, who he has started thinking of as Mr. Rogers. “Won’t you be my neighbor?” Sam asks. With a sickle blade of a smile, he crosses the street and knocks on the door.

~*~*~*~*~*~

It’s nearly eight o’clock by the time Sam makes it back to their motel room. He has a good bottle of bourbon for Dean and three hundred dollars in his pocket all for himself; all courtesy of Mr. Rogers whose real name was Neal Danna. He’d gotten a little carried away with the man and had left pieces of him scattered all over his kitchen. Plus, Sam hadn’t been prepared for this job, it had been a whim, so he’d had to stay behind and clean up. He’d listened to Mr. Rogers’s daughter on the answering machine telling her dad she’d see him for Thanksgiving. Sam had erased the message and then wiped down the machine.

“Where the fuck have you been?” Dean snarls at him when he walks in the door.

“Out,” Sam says. “I got you something though.”

He gives Dean the bourbon and kind of wishes Mr. Rogers had had a cat, but he lets it go as he waits for Dean’s reaction to his peace offering. Dean picks up the bourbon and reads the label then twists the cap off to take a long swallow. When he lowers the bottle, he says, “We’re working a case and you’re out shopping. Don’t do that shit.”

Sam gives him an annoyed look. “I got it for _you_.”

“Yeah, I get that, favors for the lady.” Dean takes another pull from the bottle. “It’s not gonna work, so you know, but thanks or whatever. Just don’t stomp off like that on me.” 

“You make no sense.” Sam shakes his head as he sits down to start looking through some pages he printed out at the library yesterday.

“I make perfect sense.” Then the bottle sloshes as he takes another slug.

He’s really plowing through the hooch tonight, Sam thinks as he watches his throat work. When Dean drinks like this that means he’s stressed or distressed. Either way, Sam wonders how this night will work out for him. Something he said hit a button, so he thinks maybe that’s a good thing. It may’ve not been what he wanted, but if it’s gotten him closer to his goal then he isn’t going to bitch either.

“You gonna stare at me all night like a creeper or are you actually gonna do some research?” Dean turns his head to look at him.

Sam’s hand on his knee curls into a fist that he forces himself to relax. Sometimes he wants to smash Dean’s face in for the shit he says, but the weight of his memories and the recollection of all the things he once felt for him stays his hand even when his temper doesn’t quite manage it.

“Maybe I’ll do both,” Sam says as he leans over the table a little. He smiles and watches the way Dean is looking back at him. He touches his wrist and lets his fingers trail down. Dean doesn’t pull away and Sam’s smile grows wider before he sits back and picks up his papers again.

“ _Creepy_ ,” Dean says under his breath.

That’s followed by another sound of booze sloshing and Sam thinks maybe it was a little creepy. He also knows Dean didn’t pull away and he turns that over and over in his mind like something shiny as he watches Dean work on getting blitzed from beneath his eyelashes. He can work with this. Yes. He can.

They work until Dean’s swaying a little in his seat and Sam puts away the stack of old missing persons reports he was digging through and watches him. “Why don’t you go take a shower? I’ll take Kilgore out for his evening walk.”

“‘Kay.” Dean grabs the edge of the table to help pull himself up. “I think he peed by the sliding glass doors earlier though. _I think_ … not gonna… go and _feel_ or nothing.”

“No, of course not,” Sam says.

Dean nods. “That would be gross.”

“Be even grosser if he took a shit and you stuck your hand in it.”

Dean snorts out a laugh. “That’s… you’re… it’s… Um.” Dean sucks his bottom lip into his mouth. He lets it go with a _pop_ and Sam’s fingers itch to reach out and touch him. He _wants_. “Nasty! That’s it!” Dean yells and Sam’s eyes widen at the outburst.

“You definitely need to take a shower or hell, just go sleep it off,” Sam says as he glances at the bottle on the table. Dean’s made his way through almost the entire fifth, there’s only about a quarter of it floating around in the bottle. Backwash and dregs, mostly.

“I think I may should go sleepy times, yes.” Dean nods and that alone is enough to make him pitch forward ever so slightly.

“You need help?”

“Not from you.” Dean is suddenly indignant. “Just gonna grab my ass and m-mo-less… _molest_ me or somethin’.”

“I am not.” And yeah, okay, he’s lying. He goes around the table and hooks an arm around Dean’s waist, wrinkling his nose at the fumes wafting off him as he carefully leads Dean away from the table.

He gets Dean to his bed and helps him lay down, Dean trying to wave him off the whole time, insisting that he’s, “Got it, you fucking ox. I’m golden.”

Sam just wrestles him down onto the mattress and Dean lies back with a huff of liquor heavy breath. He looks up at Sam standing over him and watches him with bleary eyes. Sam takes a couple of steps back to widen his point of view and they just stay that way, looking at one another. Then Sam shifts his left foot a little and there’s a _squeeeeaaaaak_. Dean blinks, Sam jumps, the puppy comes up off his nest inside of Dean’s duffel with a bark and the moment is lost.

Then Dean starts to laugh, big whooping gusts of sound. “You found Mr. Squeakerton. You hear that, Kilgore? Weird Uncle Sam found your favorite toy.”

Sam frowns at that and bends down to pick up the toy. He tosses it to the dog who is watching him anxiously, dark, intelligent eyes bright with the want for his toy. Kilgore picks it up then trots quickly away with his prize to coon up in Dean’s open duffel again. 

“Dude, you named his toys?” Sam turns back to look at Dean who’s still choking on drunken laughter.

“Just a couple.” Dean waves a hand like it’s no big deal. “Only his favorites.”

“Right,” Sam says.

Dean’s been getting really weird about the dog, talking to him all the time and stuff, but this has just driven the point home. Although, if Dean’s grown this attached to Kilgore then that means Sam’s gift has taken.

“You know, when Sammy was seventeen he got drunk at a party and I had to go pick him up.” It’s said abruptly and makes Sam freeze. Dean’s laying on the bed with his eyes closed and talking about Sam like he’s someone else. “We had to be so very sneaky _shh_ coming back in because Dad was home and he didn’t like that sort of thing. Said we couldn’t watch our backs if we were out fucked up.” Dean nods to himself. “He did it though, but that was different and ‘sides, he’s doin’ it to look out for us.”

“So, what happened with you and Sammy that night?” Sam asks even though he has that memory, too and it galls him to talk about himself like he’s not there. 

“We gave up.” Dean chuffs out a laugh. “I got the car back to the trailer and we just slept out there. Both of us in the backseat, Sammy all bony and tall and me. We shouldn’t’a done that neither, but I made sure we’s up before Dad and he never knew.” Dean frowns and huffs out another breath. “I miss the way Sammy smelled.”

“I’m right here, Dean,” Sam says as he sits down on the side of the bed.

Dean cracks one eye open and reaches out to touch Sam’s face with a wavering hand. “You have his face, but you’re not my Sammy.”

Sam just lies out on the bed as much as he can and looks up into Dean’s eyes with his chin propped on his chest. “I am,” he says.

Dean watches him for a second or two then sighs and lets his hand fall on Sam’s hair, stroking through it.

Sam lays there until his neck is screaming with pain and Dean is snoring, fingers still tangled up in his hair. He finally gets up and laughs with a shake of his head when he realizes he kept his word and didn’t molest Dean after all.


	3. Chapter 3

Two weeks later finds them in a small northeastern Maine town, population a whopping 317. Sam’s noticed a distinct physical resemblance amongst many of the town’s inhabitants and has concluded that at least half of the population is somehow (inter)related.

The town’s only motel is so small that it only has eight rooms, which are actually very tiny one-bedroom bungalows scattered somewhat randomly around a lightly wooded property. Sam and Dean are the establishment’s only guests. It’s clean and neat with old décor and is one of the most comfortable places they’ve stayed at in a long time. Dean keeps the heat cranked all the way and Sam’s starting to hate the motel’s incredibly efficient heating system.

On the other hand, Dean has on so many layers he looks like he’s put on about five pounds. He’s also had to buy Kilgore a down doggy coat and little booties to keep his paws from freezing to the ground. The old mercury thermometer outside the general store they buy beer at says that temperatures are below frigid and getting lower every day. Sam is only wearing his brown coat to keep up appearances, but it’s a weak attempt and he gets some very strange looks for his lack of clothing in such weather. He’s actually a little over-warm in that because he knows what true coldness feels like. Sam has felt Lucifer’s frozen hand stroking down his back like he was a beloved pet. This kind of cold is a heat wave in comparison.

It’s been two and a half weeks since Sam’s killed anyone and he’s starting to get an itch that he can’t put a name to, but it’s making him restless, keyed-up. He eyes everyone like they’re a potential animal for the slaughter. He’s been doing it for a while and it’s becoming harder to ignore with every day that passes.

~*~*~*~*~*~

On the third night, they go out to the town’s only bar and Sam doesn’t have to wait any longer. He’s hustling pool again, having to be extra careful because of the town’s remarkably small population and is engrossed in his current game when Dean taps him on the shoulder. Turning to look at him, Sam sees the grin on Dean’s face a split second before he drops the Impala’s keys in Sam’s shirt pocket.

“You’re already too drunk to drive?” Sam asks.

Dean’s grin grows into a full blown smirk-smile as he shakes his head in a “poor, slow Sam” gesture. “Mona said she’d give me a ride home,” Dean says with a waggle of his eyebrows. “She’s gonna show me how they keep warm in Maine.”

“Is she now?” Sam murmurs.

He looks around Dean’s shoulder and sees a slender, dark-haired, dark-eyed girl standing a little behind Dean. Sam can’t help but think, _Projecting much, Dean?_ at the sight of her and the obvious resemblance to Lisa. Mona’s got a coy, cat-that-got-the-cream smile on her face though, not Lisa’s sweet, “too apple pie for words” ultra white smile. Mona is wearing a dark green short, snug-fitting sweater, black tights and knee-high, fur topped, high-heeled boots. Eskimo hooker chic, for sure. Sam wants to tear her lips off then beat her to death with her stupid shoes.

He gives her a small smile and a nod instead.

Sam schools his face into a casual look of boredom when he redirects his gaze to Dean’s smug, grinning face. “Have fun,” he says.

“Will do,” Dean says.

He turns away then and Sam watches him slip an arm around Mona’s slender waist as his hands tighten around his pool cue so hard the wood squeaks against his skin. Sam’s eyes narrow to dangerous slits for a moment before he relaxes his features and turns back to his game of pool. He plays the game hard, not giving the other guy a chance as in the back of his mind, he schemes. He’s going to have to work out a new plan for this job since Dean went home with her straight away.

Sam knows he did it because last night, after dinner, Sam had kissed Dean again and he’d kissed him back. He’d done it without thinking, meeting Sam’s tongue with his own and leaning into him. Then he’d moaned and the sound had snapped him out of his momentary lapse. He’d drawn back with a look like disgust and fear on his face. Dean had swiped a hand over his mouth then socked Sam in the jaw. It still fucking hurt.

Mona is Dean’s way of rubbing Sam’s face in his answer of, “No.” Well, Sam thinks _yes_ is the real answer, he’s just got to clear the path before Dean spends all of his free time banging the whore in the furry boots. It’s really simple: search and destroy.

He pockets his winnings when the game is over and drinks one more beer before he leaves to give Dean and Mona time to get good and _warm_. The thought makes Sam’s lip curl back in an involuntary snarl that has the bartender’s eyes widening when she comes by to collect her tip. Sam just pushes away from the bar and leaves, stride relaxed but purposeful. He has himself a plan and it’s a good one.

Sam goes back to their cramped little bungalow, takes Kilgore out in his coat and booties to relieve himself. Then he goes back inside and leaves Dean a note saying he’s gone to meet a human heater of his own, not to wait up. He almost signs the note with a smiley face, but changes his mind. Stirring up suspicion is the wrong thing to do here. 

Note written, he goes to his duffel and takes out the roll of garbage bags, his new gloves, the Ziploc bags he’s bought for his feet and a fresh hair net. Everything he lays out neatly along the foot of his bed and then throws Kilgore a rawhide bone to chew on. He takes one garbage bag and two Ziplocs then slips the gloves on his hands before choosing the demon knife for his tool tonight. After that, he buries everything at the bottom of his duffel again.

He puts a change of clean clothes into the garbage bag for afterward. That’s the one flaw he’s got in all of this; he needs to find a way to keep his clothes clean or he’s going to start running out soon. Maybe he should just start wearing black more, it won’t keep the mess off of him, but at least it’ll hide the blood until he gets a chance to do laundry.

Across from the motel is a narrow, rutted four-wheeler trail leading back into the heavily wooded area on the other side of the highway. Sam parks the Impala far enough back from the road that passing headlights won’t glint off the chrome grill, but he can still see. It’s a full moon out tonight and anyone that _really_ wanted to look might be able to see the silvery light glimmering in patches on the shiny black paint. He’s relying on the overhanging pine boughs and his quarry being otherwise occupied with driving to notice. He settles in and waits for Mona to bring Dean back where he belongs. He’s got a few hours, but Sam can wait for this. It gives his anticipation time to build and that’s always fun; it adds another thrill to the hunt.

It’s another two hours spent sitting in the dark and cold before headlights paint the old blacktop highway with golden color. Sam sits up straighter in the driver’s seat. The car comes into view a few seconds later and he watches to see if it will turn. The brake lights paint the road behind the rear bumper bloody, glowing red and Sam grins.

“Hi, Mona,” he says softly as he watches it bump down the path to their bungalow—number three.

The car stops and he sees Dean’s silhouette climb out of the passenger side. Sam watches as he goes around, leans in the driver’s window and kisses Mona Dear goodnight. How sweet, but hey, that’s Dean—a closet romantic to the core, even with his quick little fucks. Sam taps his fingers on the steering wheel and growls as Mona pulls Dean in for another, longer kiss. After that though, he hears the sound of Dean’s laughter echoing back to him as he backs away with his shadowy hands raised playfully.

“Easy, tiger,” Sam murmurs. He thinks it’s intriguing how well he knows his brother that he can even speak his lines.

 _Finally_ the bitch pulls away, backing up in the little cul de sac outside each bungalow for just such a purpose and drives away. Sam silently counts to thirty then cranks the Impala and pulls out onto the highway, turning in the same direction Mona went. It doesn’t take him long to find her taillights in the moonlit dark and he keeps a respectful distance, driving with the headlights dimmed and keeping everything chill so as not to rouse her suspicions. Women driving alone at night are a jumpy breed. It’s all about being cool and calm.

No, actually it’s not _all_ about that. What it’s really about is being cold and wanting to be warm. For at least a little while, it closes up the yawning hole in his chest. Killing warms him up, makes him feel closer to what he assumes is _real_. To kill he has to be smart, too and Sam gets a charge out that. Luckily for him (and bad for Mona Dear) that Sam’s the smartest wolf in this particular forest and _my_ what big teeth he has.

The thought makes Sam laugh and he relaxes in his seat, wrist draped loosely over the top of the steering wheel as he watches Mona turn down a narrow gravel road about ten miles away from the motel. Now it’s just a matter of finding a safe place to hide the Impala. Sam can take care of the rest, he knows what her car looks like and after he finds it then it’ll be easy as 1-2-3. He shivers and takes a slow, deep breath as he drives on by.

He finds a place about half a mile down the road and over a bridge spanning a sluggish, ice-clogged river. Sam parks the car well back from the road and jogs back to the gravel road Mona turned down. He keeps to the grassy shoulder so his feet don’t crunch on the gravel or leave prints. 

Come to find out, Mona doesn’t live on a narrow _road_ , the gravel stretch is actually a long driveway. There’s a little white-washed house sitting in the middle of a frosty yard at its end. Sam looks around, creeping along the edge of the property. His luck holds; there’s no sign of anyone else living there. At some point he’s sure to run into someone with a roommate or who lives with a family member or in an apartment, but he’ll burn that bridge when he gets to it. There’s a plan for every eventuality just waiting to be made and Sam almost looks forward to it.

He finds her back door unlocked, one of those stupid things that people living in rural areas do. They live with a sense of false security because of how isolated they are. Truth is, they should be _more_ diligent about their security _because_ of the isolation. Good for him though that he doesn’t have to fumble with picking a lock while wearing his gloves.

Sam silently lets himself in and takes a look around. He’s standing in a mud room and it’s darker inside than it is out, so he takes a moment to let his eyes adjust then looks into the kitchen. Sam raises an eyebrow when a fat, grey and black striped tabby cat slinks by and stops to drink from a dish of water. Sam smiles to himself and thinks maybe he’s just found Dean’s cat. True, there’s the possibility he’ll recognize this cat as Mona’s, but Sam’s kind of doubtful. Black and grey striped tabby cats are as common as cockroaches.

In the front of the house, he can hear a shower running and pop music playing softly from a stereo somewhere. He moves from the mud room, startling the cat that runs away with a jangle of I.D. tags. It darts into a hole on a standing scratching post and peers out at Sam from the safety of its shelter. Sam thinks the cat likely spent Dean’s whole visit in there if it just did that with him. He can only imagine how the jumpy thing would’ve reacted to Dean and its owner fucking like bunnies a few rooms away.

Sam stands at the mouth of the darkened hallway and waits until the shower stops running. He’s sweating under his clothes and swipes it off his forehead while he waits. Eventually, the door opens and Mona pads out naked, wrapped in a cloud of steam. She never even looks in his direction and Sam shakes his head at her ignoring all blind spots as she goes down the hall another little piece and disappears into an open door. The air is lightly scented with the smell of raspberry body wash and Sam moves on down the hall, stepping neatly over the rectangle of light spilling from the bathroom.

Leaning against the wall outside the open bedroom door, he watches Mona moving around, getting dressed after her shower. The bed is a mess and the faint scent of fuck still lingers in the air, mixing with the odor of the raspberry body wash. Sam wrinkles his nose at the commingled scents; sweet and fruity competing with heavy and musky. 

He pushes away from the wall and steps over the threshold into the bedroom with one long, silent step. Standing just inside the door, he clears his throat and Mona startles, loosing a short shriek. Whirling around, she covers her chest and stares at Sam. Her dark eyes go wide and he sees the moment recognition dawns.

“Hi?” She says, visibly trying to make herself calm down. Her voice is cracking though, her eyes big and wet looking. She won’t meet Sam’s gaze directly and as he looks on, she backs away a couple of steps. It’s a nice ruse, cute even, but poorly executed. Sam could teach Mona Dear a thing or two about being _convincing_ if he had the time or the inclination, which he does not. “I saw you earlier, right? At the bar?”

Sam nods and points at her with his left hand, face splitting into a cold smile. “Got it in one.”

“What… what are you doing in my _house_?” she demands, voice rising at the lack of _anything_ in Sam’s hazel eyes. She’s finally catching on that this is not kosher. Sam thinks the fact it took her this long proves that she’s dumber than she looks and that’s saying something. She opens her mouth to scream then, but Sam is across the room before she even gets a good lungful of air.

He slaps his hand over her mouth and smiles at her. “Oh, that.” Sam looks thoughtful—that expression took a good hour to learn. He’d taught himself how to do it from memory alone, but it’s pretty damned good if he does say so himself. “I’m here to kill you, Mona Dear.”

When he takes his hand away, interested to hear what she has to say or if she’s going to scream instead, Mona yells, “Get out!” Sam watches the pulse in her throat jump as she struggles against him, kicking out with her bare feet and trying to shove at his chest. “I’ll call the police!”

Sam rolls his eyes. “No you won’t,” he says as he wraps his arm tightly around her waist. “I cut the line.” He taps his temple and smiles again, warming to this in the best possible way. “Forethought.”

He draws the demon knife and waves it at her, liking the way she swallows and a small whimper escapes. She’s starting to cry and Sam tilts his head, watching the tears streak her pretty cheeks.

“Please,” she says.

“ _Please_ ,” Sam mocks, smile never faltering as he shove her down onto the mussed bed. He sees that there’s still a wet spot in the middle of it, soaking the pale pink sheets to a dark shell color. He makes a snarling sound in the back of his throat.

Straddling her, Sam grabs her throat in one hand and hooks the knife in the corner of her mouth. “Have you ever heard of a Chelsea grin?” he asks. Then he yanks the blade through her soft cheek. He curves it just so and the blade runs along her cheek bone on the end of the arc, shaving a piece away. That’s the beauty of this particular knife; it never grows dull, the blade will never break or come free from the handle. He thinks it may be his new favorite toy.

It’s when the blade shaves off that sliver of cheek bone that her shock breaks and she finally screams. The sound hums through the knife and up Sam’s arm with a tuning fork shiver. Sam pulls the knife away and does the other side, letting her screams hum in his bones. As he works, he thinks that another plus side to living in a rural area is that there no one around to hear the screams because cutting her tongue out to stop those noises would just be _criminal_.

Sam takes his time with Mona and when he’s done, she’s barely recognizable as a human being anymore. Sam feels more sated and calm than he has in two and a half weeks, not counting that brief moment when Dean had kissed him back a few nights ago.

He takes his time cleaning up and putting Mona’s dead body in the closet. He makes the bed up to hide the blood soaking it, not worried about it leaking through to the top layers because of how many blankets there are as well as the comforter. He wipes everything down, covering Dean’s ass as well as his own. A little bleach mixing with Mona’s blood on the bed will make the lingering DNA Dean left behind there unidentifiable, so he’s not concerned with that part. It’s hilarious that Dean, the supposed serial killer, at least according to some law enforcement agencies, is the one he’s trying to protect from being implicated in this dumb slut’s murder. Sam himself may be an actual killer, but he’s at least considerate.

He turns off the heat so that the cold when it starts creeping in will preserve the body further should someone come to check on her anytime soon. He takes her car keys and parks the car in the old barn out back of the house then carefully puts the seat back in its original position. Unless anyone checks too closely, it will just look like she’s gone out for a little while; maybe taken a short vacation to warmer climes and boarded her cat, Mr. Purrfect, according to his gaily painted water dish.

When Sam is done with that, he walks back through the silent house calling, “Here, kitty, kitty, _kitty_.”

By the time he leaves, Sam has covered his—and Dean’s—tracks very thoroughly. He walks away from the house with an easy gait and Mona’s cat squirming and yowling inside a canvas overnight bag he took from her closet before shoving her body into it. He whistles, “You Are My Sunshine” all the way back to the car. He plops the bag with the cat down on the passenger seat and cranks her up, listening to the rumble of the engine, still humming his song as he backs out of the narrow path, branches lightly scraping the roof.

The cat will not stop yowling and hissing, it flops in the bag and makes low, _mraw!_ sounds of distress in its throat. Sam’s gone barely a half mile before the sound starts to genuinely grate on him. He thought the damned thing would calm down, but it hasn’t and in fact, he thinks it’s getting _worse_.

By the time he’s on the bridge, he’s gripping the steering wheel so tight that his fingers are hurting. Halfway across it, Sam slams on brakes and the car fishtails a little before finally catching in the salt and stopping. Throwing the car in park, he gets out and goes around to the other side and yanks the door open.

Unzipping the bag, Sam expects the cat to leap out and go running off into the dark. It does poke its head out, but when it sees or smells Sam, it withdraws again with another of those _mraw!_ sounds. Huffing, Sam reaches out to grab the fucking thing and when he does, it hisses and launches itself at him.

The cat latches onto his arm with a rumbling growl and sinks its teeth into the meaty part of his palm, front paws circling his wrist and claws digging in. It kicks with its back feet, digging bloody furrows into Sam’s forearm. He makes a snarling sound of his own, more animal rage than anything human as he jerks away from the car in surprise.

Reaching out with his other hand, he grabs the cat by the scruff of the neck and yanks it away from his arm with a sound of pure rage. The cat yowls and thrashes in his grip as Sam stretches his arm out, glaring at the creature. He strides to the side of the bridge, draws back and hurls the cat into the night. He watches it sail through the dark, a thrashing, twisting shape in the moonlight. Then it plummets down after a few feet spent airborne.

Sam looks down, watching the cat fall to its death and calm washes over him when it lands on one of the clods of ice in the river. It hits with a hard, echoing crack and blood splashes over the ice, black against the moon-glow blue of the ice. It’s the cat’s own fault, it was antagonizing him with its racket and then it attacked him. Useless thing should’ve known better. Letting out a long, pluming breath, Sam moves away from the side of the bridge, having seen enough to be satisfied, grabs the canvas bag from the passenger seat and chunks it over the side as well. Then he gets back in the car after shutting the other door. 

As he puts the car in gear, Sam decides that Dean will have to do without a cat. That cat was obviously defective, but as blood soaks into the leg of Sam’s jeans from his torn up arm, he thinks his faith in them is ruined. It’s perfectly understandable why they used to be burned as witches. Maybe he’ll get Dean a hamster instead.

That’s for later; right now he’s more concerned with how he’s going to explain what happened to his arm. Once again, anger storms through him and Sam’s half tempted to go back, find the cat’s body and put a bullet in it for spite. Of course that’s silly and anyway, Sam will think of something to do about his arm. Maybe he can get it cleaned up without waking Dean and just wear long sleeves for a while. It’s a working plan anyway and if the need presents itself, he’s sure he can come up with a feasible-sounding lie.

Satisfied, he takes his time getting back to the motel and doesn’t mind the blood at all. He plays Mona’s slow death back in his head alongside memories of Dean kissing him and whispering, _I love you,_ in Sam’s ear one night three years ago when he thought he was sleeping.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Two days later they’re still in Maine and Dean is disappointed that Mona is not returning his calls. Sam finds it all very amusing and is pleased when Dean, after the third call, finally says, “To hell with her; three strikes and you’re _out_.” and leaves it alone.

In the meantime, three more townspeople go missing in the woods along the outskirts of town only to reappear dead and boneless in their beds the next day. Sam has nothing to do with any of those people becoming corpses.

Sam’s reading over the latest coroner’s report for what feels like the thousandth time and a low, throbbing headache is building. Frustration coupled with the heat of the room is making him pissy, but he shoves it down and keeps working. There’s something there, but they’re not seeing it. It’s some little nuance that has a bell ringing in the back of Sam’s mind and he sees by the way Dean’s brows knit together when he’s poring over the autopsy photos that he feels it as well. 

After about an hour, Dean shoves himself up off the sofa and says he’s taking Kilgore for a walk and some fresh air. Sam mutters something rude under his breath, but when he looks up at Dean, he just says, “Don’t forget to put his booties on.”

Dean does it and then he’s gone with the dog, leaving Sam hunched over the table, fingers tangled in his hair as he stares at the reports, willing the answer to come to him.

He’s tapping his fingers irritably on the tabletop in time to the rattle of the heating vents when Dean bursts back inside with Kilgore three or so hours later. “Good boy, you are such a smart boy, yes,” he crows.

Sam glances over at them with a raised eyebrow. “What have you been doing?” he asks, clenching his jaw against the urge to snap and snarl at Dean for not helping him research this mess.

“Training him,” Dean says. He’s flushed, smiling; sweat gleaming on his skin despite the cold outside. “Kilgore is going to be the best damn hunter on four feet.”

“Kilgore will probably be the only hunter on four feet. Ever,” Sam says.

Dean shakes his head. “Nah, Bobby had his dogs, remember?” Dean says. “I’ve been talking to him, getting pointers.”

“Yeah? How’s that working out for you?” Sam asks then glares at the dog as Dean ruffles his newly un-bandaged ears.

Dean spends a lot of time with Kilgore and Sam sometimes doesn’t like it very much. The dog is kind of in his way and— He stops himself right there. He _will not_ kill the dog. He won’t do it. Besides, he reasons, the dog may actually prove to be good backup one day if they can get him trained right. He would definitely have his uses and Sam likes things that are useful.

“It’s working out just fine,” Dean says as he gives him a funny look. “Remind me to make him a salt collar though.”

“A what?” Sam asks and tries not to glare at the dog who’s sitting on one of Dean’s feet, panting happily up at him.

“Collar… filled with salt, for protection,” Dean says. “If he’s gonna be hunting with us, he’ll need it. Maybe a tattoo wouldn’t be a bad idea either.”

“We are not tattooing the dog,” Sam says because it feels like the right thing to say.

“I’d sedate him or whatever,” Dean says.

Sam snorts—another proper response, he can tell because Dean’s relaxed and _talking_ to him. This is like it used to be; he recognizes this and settles into the role.

“You need to help me work with him, too. He’s going to be hunting with _us_ , not just me,” Dean continues.

Sam recognizes that mildly scolding big brother tone in Dean’s voice and the smile isn’t all that hard to fake because it’s half real. “Sure,” he says. As a show of good faith, he calls Kilgore over and gives him a good petting. 

“Good, you can start helping us tomorrow,” Dean says.

Sam coughs out a laugh, throws Dean a coroner’s report and says, “You can start helping me _now_.”

“Bossy,” Dean mutters, but he takes the report and sits on the small couch in the tiny living area. Sam notices that Dean never turns his back to him. He sits facing where Sam sits at the table, back to the window to let some of the cold leach into his skin. It’s not much, but it’s better than nothing.

He straightens his sleeve over his bandaged arm then goes back to the stack of reports and eyewitness accounts they’ve gathered, pretending that he doesn’t see the look Dean casts at him when he does it. He doesn’t know anything about Sam’s arm, but he fidgets with his sleeves because they’re all a bit too short and he has to keep his palm turned away from him at all times. It’s becoming a pain in the ass to hide it and Sam’s really considering cutting open the scratches and blaming it on something before Dean gets suspicious enough to ask. The lengths that he will go to are kind of astounding, but Sam’s oblivious to that fact and just turns a page.

His eyes light on something in the fourth victim’s eye and he stares hard at it, racking his brain trying to work out where he knows that symbol. When it clicks he says, “Holy,” just as Dean says, “Shit.”

When their eyes meet, Dean looks a little pale. Sam, well, he feels kind of excited. At least he thinks that’s what it is. Either way, his adrenaline is pumping because they’ve found their beastie and it’s a doozy.

Sam licks his lips then says, “It’s a Twam’stren. Aztec bone eater. Makes perfect sense now.”

“I just don’t want to end up being rubber band man,” Dean says with a glance down at the crime scene photo on his lap. “Anyway, what’s one of those doing here in Maine? There’s only been one other one in the U.S. in the last hundred and fifty years according to Dad’s journal.”

“And why he needed to know that will never factor into the things I understand,” Sam says.

“If he hadn’t then we wouldn’t know, so shut up,” Dean says.

“Whatever,” Sam says. He cracks his neck loud enough that Dean winces at the sound.

Dean’s quiet for a little while and then he says, “This could get really messy. These things are vicious and I don’t know, man. We may need backup on this one.”

“I think we can cover it,” Sam says and stands up to pace while he thinks. “We just need enough explosives.”

Dean’s face lights up at that. “Kaboom?”

“Right back to Mictlan,” Sam agrees.

“Mictlan?”

“Aztec Hell.”

“Ah. So, how you wanna do this?”

“We need to get it somewhere we can confine it and have that place rigged to blow,” Sam says. “After that, just detonate I guess.”

“I think we need a remote control trigger,” Dean says.

“Of course you do,” Sam says. He resists the urge to rub his hands together. Two hunts in one week; this is turning out pretty good. The Twam’stren isn’t the same as Mona or any of the others though. They’re a different kind of job, but Sam likes both just fine.

“Let’s get to work then,” Dean says, although it comes out somewhat reluctantly.

“My thoughts exactly,” Sam says, choosing to ignore Dean’s slight hesitation.

He knows that stomping around in the freezing cold while hunting a monster that sucks the _bones_ from its victims like some kind of crunchy Slurpee is not Dean’s idea of a good time. It needs to be done though and if they can get the thing then they’ll be saving a lot more lives. It is the point of what they do and Sam understands that. He can’t say he gives a shit about how many people live or die, but killing monsters is a viable way to pass the time.

“Thinking like you: now there’s a scary thought,” Dean mutters. Sam pretends he doesn’t hear him. Speaking more clearly, Dean says, “I’ll work up something to blow up and you come up with a plan to lure the thing out that doesn’t end with one or both us lacking a skeleton.”

“Sure,” Sam says. He’s Being Amiable once more. He finds that he has to be that a lot, so much so that it looks like a job title in his mind, but it works to keep the peace and Dean relaxes around him at least some as long as he’s agreeable.

He gets to work planning and scheming while Dean goes to dig around in the car for supplies. He doesn’t have close to half of what he needs, so he makes a run into the tiny town for the extra supplies. When he gets back he starts putting together the explosives. When they’re set, they both go out to find a place near enough where they suspect the Twam’stren’s lair to be so they don’t have to take it too far into civilization. Then they come back and the wait for nightfall. 

By the time it is full dark, Sam’s pacing and Dean’s fidgeting; the rush of the hunt is setting in. While it’s not as great as it used to be for Dean and Sam just wants to go kill something, they both still get that old familiar tingle in their fingertips. Flicking back the blinds again shows Sam full darkness, black and impenetrable.

“It’s time,” he says.

“Rock on,” is Dean’s response as he pops to his feet, hefting the duffel with their extra weapons in it. The old farmhouse they finally settled on has been rigged to blow already and Dean’s got the remote in the Impala’s glove compartment.

“Yep,” is all Sam says as they walk outside with Sam in the lead, ready to face the thing that’s been making trail mix out of the townspeople.

“This is gonna suck,” Dean says as he slides into the driver’s seat.

“It may be fun,” Sam says calmly and Dean… well, Dean has nothing to say to that. He just gives Sam one of those looks he’s grown used to seeing, cranks the car and puts her in gear. He backs up, pops in an Alice Cooper cassette and they’re off.

Sam looks out the window into the dark and when they cross a familiar bridge, he sits up straighter, looking over the side to see if any frozen kitty splatter is left on the ice below. It’s really too dark out, but it’s the thought that counts, Sam thinks. He smiles faintly when he recalls Mr. Purrfect. Sam hums a couple bars of “You Are My Sunshine” under his breath, but Dean can’t hear him since he’s loudly singing along with “Dangerous Tonight” to pump himself up. That works fine, too, Sam figures and settles in for the ride to the far edge of this little shithole town, watching as snow begins to fall.

~*~*~*~*~*~

They get back sometime before midnight, stumbling and filthy. They’ve got monster goo that stinks of rotten cherries covered in mildew all over them and there’s blood everywhere. Sam catches Dean’s elbow to keep him steady while he tries to get the key in the door. He watches him through the blood crusted in his eyelashes, clumping them together uncomfortably until he gets tired of Dean fumbling with the lock.

“You can barely hold your arm up. Give me the key,” he says even as pushes Dean out of the way, plucking the key from his bloody fingers as he does.

“I’ve had it,” Dean protests, but he doesn’t try to snatch the key back from Sam.

“Uh-huh, I didn’t see that at all,” Sam says. He slides the key in the lock with no trouble. He’s hurt, but his right arm isn’t fucked up like Dean’s is.

They stumble-lurch into the front room of the tiny cabin and Kilgore’s there to greet them, stump of his tail wagging furiously enough that his whole body sways back and forth.

“Move, boy,” Dean says as he gently pushes the dog away. “I’m covered in monster ooze and you don’t want that on you.”

Sam stands in the open door, watching the dog wag its tail so hard he thinks the thing’s ass might fall off. Dean turns to look at him over his shoulder and catches the slight smirk on Sam’s lips. “What’s so damn funny? I’m bleedin’ here,” he says and then clumps off, feet dragging with his exhaustion. “And close the damn door, Sam. It’s freezing.”

Sam hadn’t noticed at all, he’s pretty comfortable, but he shuts the door anyway though it irks him to know that now he’s going to get _hot_ again. “There,” Sam says then sprawls in one of the chairs at the little dining table.

“Awesome,” Dean says as he yanks his shirt over his head. The wound on his right shoulder has bled all the way down his back. Even from this distance Sam can see the gaping mouth of the gash. The damn Twam’stren had claws sharper than obsidian blades and Dean had caught it pretty bad. “I got dibs on the shower.”

“Sure,” is all Sam says as he watches Dean make his unsteady way into the bathroom. Sam thinks that Dean is never quite so beautiful as he is when he’s bleeding.

They need to tend to their wounds, but there’s no point in them doing that since they’re filthy, so showers come first then doctoring will follow. Sam knows that they’re going to get blood and goop all over the tiny bathroom and that tomorrow they will spend part of the morning scrubbing down the tiles that used to be buttercup, but have darkened to hag’s teeth yellow with age and use.

Dean hisses when he has to reach up to flip on the light switch and Sam cocks his head, hearing the sound in a different context. He closes his eyes and allows himself the recollections while he waits for his turn in the shower.

When Dean comes out of the shower, he’s wearing nothing but his boxers and steam is curling from his skin like mist. Sam’s mouth goes a little dry with the sudden want to slam him against the wall right there and then and fuck him senseless. Instead, he rises from his seat and goes around Dean, glancing over his shoulder at the gash on Dean’s shoulder that’s already oozing blood down his back again. Sam turns away and licks his teeth even as he reaches behind himself to shut the door.

Sam finds Dean sitting on the lumpy couch, dressed now in a pair of drawstring sweatpants as he dabs at a scrape on his elbow with antiseptic cleanser. “How’s your shoulder?” Sam asks as he looks at the blood that has run in thin rivulets down Dean’s arm.

“Fucking hurts, that’s how it is,” Dean answers. He drops the cotton ball he was using to clean the scrape on his elbow with. It lands neatly atop a small pile of bloodstained fluff that is other used cotton balls.

“It needs stitches,” Sam says as he lets his eyes wander over Dean’s bruised ribs. He wants to lick his teeth again, but doesn’t.

“I can’t reach it,” Dean says.

“I can,” Sam says. He finally moves out of the bathroom doorway to go and sit beside Dean on the sofa. He takes up the first aid kit and pulls out the suture kit they keep stored in the bottom compartment of it.

Dean’s looking at him over his shoulder, a wary gleam in his eyes that have been made dark by the bad lighting in the room. “Yeah, all right,” he says after a moment to consider whether or not he trusts Sam enough with a needle and his back to him. “Just don’t have too much fun there, okay, Captain Howdy?”

Sam’s snorts as he presses a gauze pad to Dean’s shoulder and applies pressure, trying to stop the lazily oozing blood more so he can see what he’s doing. “Last I checked, you never complained about a little pain,” he says when he removes the gauze pad. The blood is still flowing, but it’s even more sluggish now. As long as Dean holds still and doesn’t tear the lips of it open again, it should suffice enough for Sam to stitch him up.

“You shut up about that,” Dean says. His back is stiff with tension when he says it, Sam notices, but he doesn’t turn on him or make to move away.

Sam smiles to himself while he threads nylon suture thread onto a curved needle. “Whatever you say, Dean,” he says then hooks the needle into the far corner of the wound, dragging the thread through it.

As he works, he thinks about how Dean has always liked a little pleasure with his pain. Sam has always enjoyed inflicting a little—sometimes a lot, if he’s being honest and why shouldn’t he be?—pain. They went together like razors and veins back in the halcyon days when their wants—needs—had wound together so beautifully.

Sam remembers how strange a feeling it was the first time he bit Dean—honestly _bit_ him—his teeth sinking into the smooth, tanned skin at the dip of Dean’s waist. He remembers the thrill he’d felt as his teeth had briefly met through the wall of Dean’s flesh and Dean… Dean had bucked with a short, sharp cry that was anything but pained. Sam, still so young at the time, had worried and fretted that there was something even more wrong with him than wanting to fuck his big brother when he realized how much he _liked_ hurting Dean like that. Even knowing that Dean liked to be hurt hadn’t made him feel much better about it at first.

The irony of it is he was so worried he’d end up being a serial killer because that’s what crap television and pop psychology said all sadists ended up being. Either that or they had the deeply rooted potential to become such. There’s a list a mile and a half long of them out there: Christopher Wilder, Richard Ramirez, Jürgen Bartsch… Sam Winchester, to name a few. Although he prefers to think of himself as a sadist who also happens to be a serial killer. There’s a big difference in Sam’s book and so what if he gets a little sadistic on occasion? That’s merely a side effect, not a symptom.

He finishes Dean’s shoulder and leans back to look at his handiwork. The stitches are neat, tight—but not too tight—and Sam determines that the wound will heal up nicely. There are dark garnet drops of blood squeezing out between the bristling criss-crosses of the stitches and Sam makes a humming, hungry sound low in his throat before he can help himself. Leaning in, he licks the beads of blood from Dean’s back, feels him jump with a muttered curse and start to pull away, but Sam grabs his waist.

“Please, Dean,” Sam murmurs with his mouth scant centimeters from his blood streaked skin. “Let me.”

“Get off me, Sam,” Dean’s voice is tight, but not angry and it’s shaking a little bit. The warning in his tone is unmistakable though, but Sam ignores it. All he needs is a little leeway and he’ll have what he wants, he knows it as surely as he knows 3:00 AM is the longest of all the hours.

“No,” Sam says. He licks the freshly stitched wound again. He tastes clean skin and old copper-iron on his tongue, sweetened by just the faintest taste of fresh blood. “You remember, I know you do,” he says as he drags his hands up Dean’s bruised ribs, stopping where the darkest of the bruises are from memory alone. “Could Lisa do this to you? Did she even _know_ that you like this? Hmm?”

“Fuck you, get _off_.” Dean’s voice is strained and almost wheezing, which makes Sam smile. Something’s working, he knows it is even when Dean’s strong, hard fingers wrap around his and try to pry his hands away.

“I miss it,” Sam says, glad to hear the right note of sincerity in his voice. It’s the right note because it’s mostly not a lie. “I miss _you_.”

Dean lets his hands drop with a frustrated, pained sound that has nothing to do with physical aches. “Liar,” Dean says, but his breath hitches all the same.

It’s faint, but Sam is pushing him right along in the direction he wants him to go. For weeks he’s been chipping away at Dean, wearing him down with his persistence, with his _insistence_ and now it’s finally working. Who knew all Sam really needed was Dean getting beat to hell by some nasty-as-fuck monster?

Sam ignores the “liar” remark and bites at the back of Dean’s neck. The sound that rolls in his throat when he does it is so much like an animal growl that it barely counts as human. There it is, though: Sam’s not human, he never has been, not really. No matter how much Dean, Bobby, John and even Sam himself had all tried to pretend otherwise, he’s not human and that fact is even truer now than it was before.

He has felt Lucifer’s light burning in his veins and felt his presence like flames of ice licking at his brain stem; he’s been down in the pit and his soul is still there. Sam has known Lucifer’s love and his rage, but he still remembers Dean’s love most of all. It should be funny because how can Dean Winchester ever measure up against the most fallen of all the fallen angels? But he can and he does, Sam’s memories tell him that even though he doesn’t have the emotions to back them up.

As he thinks, he bites and licks his way across Dean’s shoulders. He traces Castiel’s handprint burned into Dean’s flesh with the tip of his tongue and thinks that, yes, he’s definitely going to need to figure out how to end Dean’s personal little angel of the Lord, too. Castiel likes him, in his own way, and Sam knows that. Sometimes he thinks Castiel more than likes him, but he doesn’t care about that. He’s just one more fly in Sam’s ointment that will need to be plucked out if for no other reason than Castiel will eventually cotton on to what Sam is doing in his spare time and try to stop him. And that well… _that_ will never do.

Sam hums his agreement with himself and then he starts to move his fingers up and down Dean’s ribs, playing a familiar tune. Dean’s back bows, body memory mixing with feeling. Sam smiles as he watches Dean finally allow himself to sink back into the familiarity of his little brother’s vicious touch. Sam plays “Für Elise” along Dean’s ribs, using the sharp juts of the bones as his keyboard. His fingers dig bruises even deeper into Dean’s already bruised skin. He sighs as Dean makes a choked sound of pleasure with every repetition of the notes against his abused flesh.

Sam can’t and never has been able to play the piano, but he does have something of an ear for music. That and “Für Elise”, while beautiful, is a very simple melody to play at least the opening of. He plays the song on Dean and in turn, Dean becomes Sam’s piano. It’s all very poetic if one were to give a shit about things like poetical metaphors.

That makes Sam huff out a soft laugh as he digs his fingers in deeper until Dean is shaking with the pain of it, slowly pressing himself back into Sam even as he twists and squirms. His body craves what Sam’s hands are doing to him even though a part of his mind, like anyone’s almost, still tries to escape it. Masochism is a confusing thing, Sam supposes, such a deep-rooted physical desire for pain warring with the basic human instinct for survival. Sadism very rarely has much to do with that, which is probably why sadists end up being serial killers wherein masochists—Albert Fish aside—do not.

“Do you still want me to stop?” Sam murmurs against the side of Dean’s neck as he continues to work his fingers into Dean’s bruises.

“No.” Dean’s voice is raspy, something hollow and sad underneath the want Sam hears.

He knows Dean wishes he could hate him, but still can’t quite manage it. But Sam is determined to make Dean _love_ him all the way again. Even monsters need something to hold on to. He’s come to this realization in a strange, roundabout way, but it holds true all the same. He may not feel emotions or even really know what love is anymore, but it comes back to memories and the knowledge that he once did. All of that was wrapped up in Dean; roses caught in razor wire they were so tangled up in one another even when it was killing them. Even when it maybe still is.

Sam snags a tube of antibiotic ointment from the first aid kit and with one more sharp nip to Dean’s shoulder, teeth burying in the heel of Castiel’s palm print, he rises. “Come on,” he says, leaning down to murmur it against the shell of Dean’s ear. “Say yes. Please.”

Dean turns his head and looks at him, a million things flying through the green-gold of his irises. For a moment, Sam thinks he’s going to hit him, but then he grabs Sam’s chin hard enough to bruise and jerks his face down for a kiss. Dean makes a strangled sound, all want and fury at wanting _still_ , when their lips meet. It’s a biting, bruising kiss, a tangle of tongues and saliva until they can both taste blood in their mouths. Dean’s fingers are digging into Sam’s shoulders as he drags himself up off the couch, never breaking the kiss. Sam smiles at the violence of this homecoming. Anything less for them wouldn’t be fitting.

They make their way back to the bedroom with its two beds and Sam pushes Dean down onto the one he’s been using. Dean doesn’t let him go though, he just tightens his hold on Sam’s arms and pulls him down with him. They hit the mattress with a squeal-shriek of rusted bedsprings and their teeth clack together when they dive back in for another kiss. Sam’s biting Dean’s lips and Dean is biting his right back. There’s blood ringing their mouths. This is more like fighting than it is fucking. The thought makes Sam laugh, the sound rumbling deep in his chest as he breaks out of the kiss to lick his sloppy mouth then Dean’s.

Their chests are heaving and Sam looks down at Dean sprawled on the mattress beneath him. He’s looking right back, lust and anger; sorrow and want, a fascinating kaleidoscope of warring emotions. His whole expression is like that. Sam wonders if maybe Dean hates himself for wanting Sam like this after all; after trying so hard to tell himself that he doesn’t. It’s a thought that Sam files it away for later inspection. Right now he’s more concerned with getting Dean naked and he yanks his sweats down off his hips hard enough he hears the tell-tale sound of cloth ripping. Dean shoves his hand away to take them off himself and Sam fumbles the cap off the antibiotic salve while he does.

When he squeezes the ointment onto his fingers it’s thick and cold, sticky as he rubs it around to try and soften it up some. It’ll work and Sam knows it will, but the Maine cold has made the stuff almost like a solid even after being in the warmth of their bungalow. Sam gets it smeared around good enough though and when he looks down at Dean, he swallows and cuts his eyes away for a moment. Sam thinks that _now_ he will tell him no, that he will shove him away and tell him to never come near him again. That in doing this and coming close to succeeding, he will have driven an immovable wedge between them. Sam doesn’t know if he will be able to stop, not now that he’s this close to the prize. He doesn’t know if he would even want to. If he even would.

Then Dean looks back at him and the lust in his eyes melts some of the trepidation; there’s resolve now where there was only sadness before. The sadness lingers like an echo, but Sam doesn’t have any trouble ignoring that. He sees his own want reflected back out of Dean’s eyes and that’s all he really needs.

“Do it,” Dean says. When he spreads his legs for Sam, it’s almost like a challenge.

It’s all Sam needs to hear and he presses one salve-sticky finger inside of Dean. With a shudder and a sharply indrawn breath, Sam watches Dean as he tries to make himself relax. Dean hasn’t done this since the last time he and Sam were together, and his body says it even though he won’t. Sam feels a curl of satisfaction lick through him at the realization.

The salve melts with Dean’s body heat and soon Sam’s finger is sliding easily in and out of his body, so he adds another to do the same. Dean’s breathing hard, hips canted back and inviting as he fingers him. Spreading his fingers as much as he can inside of him, a tingle of pleasure runs down Sam’s spine at the strained sound Dean makes at the slight burn. So he does it again.

Soon, Sam’s working three fingers in out of Dean, smooth and slow as he twists them. Dean is slicked with sweat, arching and moaning. In the dark, Sam smiles as he finds Dean’s prostate and just lets his fingertips play along it, pressing and manipulating it until Dean is arching off the bed, breath ragged and chest heaving.

Sam rubs that spot inside of Dean again, shivering a little when his voice cracks on a rough cry. Leaning forward, Sam scrapes his teeth over Dean’s chest, feels his heart thudding under his lips and bites down over the spot where that thump-thud is the strongest. He bites over and over until he can taste blood in his mouth and Dean is shaking like he’s coming apart.

“Sam,” he says as he twists his fingers in the sheets by his hip. “ _Sam_ ,” he repeats and lets go of the sheet to yank Sam’s hair, pulling his face away from his chest.

It’s like being pulled through tar, the feeling of Dean pushing him away from the sensation of the heartbeat against his lips. There was something primal about it, all of that hot blood and meat right below his teeth, like trying to tear his way in. For only a moment, he wanted to crack Dean’s sternum and press a burning kiss onto his heart. Wanted to whisper, _Let me in,_ against its steady, throbbing beat.

He withdraws his fingers and moves away from Dean only long enough to shuck his own clothing before he climbs back on the bed and settles between his legs. A quick, cursory slick of antibiotic salve-cum-lube on his cock is all Sam has the patience for before he tilts Dean’s hips back, takes a deep breath and slams into him all the way with one quick thrust.

Dean grunts and his hands scrabble at the skin on Sam’s shoulders even as Sam lets out an almost surprised-sounding gasp. He’s spent a lot of time thinking about Dean and how it felt to move inside of him, but none of those hours spent reminiscing have prepared him for the reality. Dean fits around him like a dream; like he was _made_ for Sam and Sam alone. Now that he’s buried to the hilt inside of him, it makes even more sense as to why Sam has been so determined to keep him: Because Dean _is his_ (sunshine, his only sunshine…).

Sam begins to move inside of Dean and Dean rises to meet his every thrust. He pulls Sam to him, urging him on with softly spoken, filthy things rasped into his ear and Christ, it really is kind of like coming home. Sam can’t help thinking that, no matter how absurd it may sound in his head even as a scurrying little thought. Fucking Dean is like being where he belongs again at last; like it’s the last part of some puzzle. More than anything though, Sam is pleased to have at last gotten the one thing he’s wanted above all others.

When Dean comes, it is with a muffled shout against Sam’s shoulder and he bites down. Sam sucks in a hard breath and lets Dean hang on, mouth filling with his weird blood that still he imagines Dean thinks tastes _off_ because there will always be demon cells flowing in his veins. Maybe now there’s even a little Morningstar.

The thought almost makes Sam laugh, but then his orgasm broadsides him, hitting hard and sharp and he moans low in the back of his throat. He turns his head and catches Dean’s mouth in a kiss, one that’s slow and dirty as he fucks his way through his own orgasm. Dean moans weakly into his mouth, hands gentling on Sam’s back and shoulders as he strokes them down to the upper curve of his ass.

Sam stops moving, shivering as little aftershocks burst under his skin in slower and slower intervals until they stop completely. Only then does he look down at Dean and find him watching him in the dark.

“Get off me,” Dean says after a long moment spent looking at Sam.

“Dean—”

“Just get off, Sam,” he says and punctuates it with a push against Sam’s side.

 _Shit_ , is all Sam can think as he pulls out of Dean and rolls off the side of the bed to stand up.

“I—” Sam tries again and Dean throws an arm over his eyes.

“I’m tired, man, let me sleep,” Dean says and Sam lets out a sigh of relief.

Okay, so maybe it’s not as bad as he thought, but it’s not as good as he’d wanted either. Still, it’s _something_ and now that the door has been opened again, everything else is free to walk right on in. Sam knows that and, like he has thought several times since he began this endeavor, he can work with it.

“So you’re okay?” he asks because that’s the kind of thing he would’ve asked.

“I don’t know,” Dean says and sighs. Sam scowls as he stoops to tug his pants back. “I think so,” Dean adds as Sam starts to walk out of the room.

“Really?”

Another sigh. “Really.” Then he moves his arm to pick his head up and look at Sam standing in the open bedroom doorway with Kilgore sniffing at his ankles. “Since you’re awake all night anyway, how about you pack up so we can move out first thing in the morning?”

“I can do that,” Sam says and _there_ , this is closer to right. It’s good enough for snuff anyway, as they would say.

He walks out of the room smiling and humming. “To new beginnings, huh?” he says to Kilgore who pricks his ears at the sound of his voice.

The dog watches him for a moment, but when no new development from Sam is forthcoming—like Sam giving him a tasty chew bone for instance—he goes through the cracked bedroom door and bails up on the bed with Dean. Sam crosses the room again to close the door and hears Kilgore sniffing the bedclothes with great interest. Dean sleepily mumble-bitches at him to lie down and go to bed like a good dog.

Sam laughs, the sound low and triumphant, as he starts moves away to start gathering up their stuff.

He gets everything done, lays their duffels beside the door and turns off all the lights. Sam goes to the sofa and then sits there. He listens to Dean’s faint snores coming from the bedroom and the way the bed creaks when either or him or Kilgore shift on the old mattress. Everything else is silent, winter cold and darkness laying their corner of the world to rest in a blanket of white. The hush filters through the room and Sam listens to it with thin streams of sweat trickling down out of his hairline.

He can feel the hole inside of him where his soul used to be and cocks his head, meditating on it in his own way. Sam thinks of that hole as a sucking wound, something gaping and dark that makes an awful sound every time he draws a deep breath. It’s not so much awful as it is interesting to Sam, something to ponder when he’s alone in the middle of the night. He’s seen wounds like that before, more than once actually, but he still remembers the very first. He stares into his soul-shaped hole just as he stared into that one and thinks back.

One fall John got work as a ranch hand down in Wyoming, helping with the end of the season round-up and branding calves. He even talked the owners into giving the boys some pick-up-type work—mucking out stalls, feeding hogs, things like that—for a weekly sum of eight dollars. It was the closest either of them ever came to having an allowance.

In the evenings, Sam and Dean would go down to the corral to watch their dad work, both of them thinking that it was the coolest shit they’d ever seen. Real live rustler stuff happening not fifteen feet away. They didn’t even mind the stink of burning cow hide they were so engrossed in watching their dad be a bad ass _cowboy_. Sam had felt bad for the little calves though, no matter how cool he thought their dad was in his big hat and heavy work gloves. Dean couldn’t have given a damn about the calves, it was all about John swinging a rope over his head and tying one after the other.

It was on one of those evenings just before the call to supper was sounded that the old longhorn steer, Sly, broke loose and gored of the other hands. Sam and Dean had been leaning over the fence watching them brand calves when it happened. Bodies had careened every which way to try and get out of Sly’s warpath, but one poor bastard just wasn’t fast enough. They’d both looked on in horrified fascination as the tip of the bull’s horn had pierced the man’s sternum and Sly had tossed his head back. The man hung there like a fleshy accessory; maybe a jauntily cocked hat. 

In the darkness, Sam grins at the thought and wipes more sweat away from his hairline. 

Hat, yeah, he likes that, but what he remembers more than that is the sound of the bone crunching on the end of that sharp horn. Sly had shaken his head, dislodging his cumbersome little meat bonnet and slung the man to the ground just as someone finally pumped the bull’s ass full of tranquilizer darts. The wounded ranch hand landed not five feet from where Sam and Dean were frozen in place, watching the horrific tableau spread out before them. 

Sam heard the suck-bubble sound of the wound before he looked down and saw it as well. Only twelve at the time, he started to cry as he looked at the thing in the middle of the man’s chest like a giant, empty eye socket fountaining blood. John had been the first man over the fence, running to the hand’s side even though it was useless; anyone looking could’ve been able to tell it. The man with the hole in his chest was going to die and there was nothing they could do about it.

Then John looked up and saw their ghost-pale faces peering over the top of the fence, Sam’s tears cutting tracks through the barnyard grime on his cheeks. He’d barked at Dean to get Sam out of there, told them they didn’t need to see that. Dean had done as he was told—he always did, one major exception aside—and led Sam away. He’d placed a comforting hand on the back of Sam’s neck that day and never once did he make fun of him for crying. Sam may’ve been getting old for such a thing, especially by Winchester standards, but Dean hadn’t mocked him for it then nor in all the years that came after. Sam sometimes thinks that’s because Dean felt much like doing the same thing that day.

Sam blinks calmly in the darkness when that mind movie ends and taps his fingers on his chest, right over his own sucking wound. He remembers the gaping socket in the man’s chest and he imagines that the place where his soul once resided, snug and tarnished inside him, looks much the same. It’s not such a bad image, Sam supposes, it’s just weird that he equates _this_ hole with the bull’s lethal horns. Then again, it’s better to think of it like this than as his body being like a Twinkie with all the cream filling squeezed out. Sam fucking hates Twinkies. Definitely better; the bull’s horns.

He was tossed high into the air and when he came back down—up, actually—there was a sucking vortex in his chest. It’s not a hindrance to Sam though, only to everyone else. For Sam, it’s a hole that doesn’t need to be filled, that’s everyone else and their asinine reasoning and it positively reeks of self-righteousness and selfishness on their parts. Not to mention, it’s just irrational and illogical. 

Funny how most people would view that as a bad thing. Sam’s pretty apathetic about the whole matter. Well, he’s not exactly _apathetic_ , but he’s not upset about having a big gaping hole sucking at his middle like a collapsing star either. He prefers it this way and he’s said that once or twice already. No one believes him though because _he doesn’t have a soul_. So how would he know?

Sam is really tired of that illogical line of reasoning. Soullessness does not equate with mental retardation and the inability to make decisions in the interests of one’s own good. In fact, it does the opposite—it kind of ensures that one makes decisions solely in the interest of their own good and it’s everyone else who gets screwed over. Too fucking bad; that’s Sam’s view on the matter.

He wipes more sweat off his forehead and says, “Ho-hum.”

Then he takes a moment to reconsider and makes an addendum to personal itinerary: Dean. He has to keep an eye on him and make sure he remains Sam’s. That, too, is Sam’s self-serving interests talking, but he has a master plan and Dean is essential to making sure that it plays out right. If it can be played out the way Sam’s thought of it anyway. Maybe it’s more of a hypothesis than a plan, but it’s something to do all the same and that’s good because Sam gets bored a _lot_ these days.

That thought also flutters away and leaves Sam once more sitting in the dark, itching at the tickly line of sweat running down the back of his neck. He’s bored right now and the heat is starting to annoy him on top of everything else. Most of the time he can deal with the warmth just fine. He doesn’t like it, but he can manage. This, however, is like being stuck in a badly decorated sweat lodge. Fine, he understands that it’s really damned cold outside, but he’s really damned hot _inside_.

“That’s enough of this now,” he says and stands up. He wiggles his fingers bye-bye at the heating vent blasting hot, dry air into the room and then goes to the cabin’s door, opens it and steps out into the frigid night.

He’s still wearing nothing but his jeans and it feels _wonderful_ outside. He walks off the little stoop and steps into the snowy cold. It licks up through the soles of his feet and Sam shivers. Not because he’s cold, but because he’s delighted, comfortable at last. Dean would shit kittens right now if he saw Sam stomping around in the snow half naked with his face tilted up to catch the little softly falling flakes on his tongue.

The sky is slowly lightening its way towards the blue-grey that prefaces the coming dawn and Sam has the whole place to himself as he walks toward the main office. They’ll be leaving soon and the least he can do is treat himself to a few unheated hours in their bungalow that still smells faintly of blood and sex.

When he gets to the office, he uses one of their credit cards to jimmy the old lock on the door and tuts under his breath. This place has some seriously lousy security and since it’s a weekend night, there’s not even anyone working the desk. He knew that though or else he wouldn’t have come down here.

Except he may have. The desk clerk would’ve just been a little something extra to do before he knocked out the heat and power. Take the knife, take their life. ( _It’s rhyme time in Sammy Central!_ he thinks with a soft snort of laughter). When he was finished, he’d clean up and then bury the body in the snow out back. To be on the safe side, he’d take the key in himself when they left. It would’ve been almost _too_ easy, but he can’t deny the little thrill he feels at the idea of pulling one off like that and considers whether or not he should try it one day. It’s a sweet scenario and something for him to fantasize about anyway.

Sam makes his way through the office, finds the breakers for the heating supply and he kills the power to the whole place, too, just because he can. For an extra kick, he takes all of the fuses as well and then lets himself back out into the cold, snow-swirling night, chunking fuses into the scrub along the icy path back to their bungalow as he goes. He takes his time, laying down in a snow bank to make a snow angel and laughing up at the sky as he does. The fading stars seem to laugh with him, especially the brightest one hanging in the pre-dawn sky. It’s like that star gets it and who knows? Perhaps it does. Then again, maybe Sam’s just crazy.

By the time he makes it back to their cabin, he’s really, truly comfortable—cold down to the bone in the best way imaginable. Lucifer’s cold was a cold that burned through everything and the Maine cold has a far gentler embrace than that. Yet, Sam finds something lacking in it, but it’s good enough and this cold doesn’t hurt the way Lucifer’s did.

He dawdles on his way back, but it it’s really not that long, so he isn’t expecting the cabin to be much colder when he finally steps back inside. It is though, not as much as he’d like, but it’s a vast improvement and Sam smiles in the sleepy grey light seeping slowly around the edges of the curtains. He breathes in deep and lets out a breath that fogs lightly in the room before he turns to go into the bedroom to wait.

The overcast day has lightened to a paler shade of grey by the time the cold is enough to drag Dean out of his exhausted slumber. Kilgore rooted under the covers about two hours ago. Sam’s been listening to Dean’s teeth chatter and watching him shiver as he curls in on himself to seek out warmth for about as long. When he comes to though, he does so suddenly with a gasp and full body shudder. Sam is sitting on the foot of his own unused bed, watching his breath in the air glitter like silver smoke.

“Sam?” Dean croaks. He starts to say something else, but his teeth clack together and he has to stop.

“Hmm?” Sam asks and turns his head to look at Dean huddled under the covers, the lump of the dog’s body on his left side.

“What the fuck ha-hap-happened?” Dean asks. “F-f-fr-freezing.”

“Power went out sometime last night.” Sam’s small smile is hidden by the dimness of the room. “Guess it took the heat with it.”

“Ya don’t s-say,” Dean says and shudders again. “Fuck!”

Sam stands up and crosses the narrow gap between their beds. “Scoot over.”

Dean looks up at him, eyes wide and for a moment, Sam thinks he won’t, but then he nods and starts shoving the dog over with him as he moves. Kilgore’s sleek head pops out from under the covers and he chuff-snorts, clearly disgruntled at being disturbed.

“Deal,” Dean tells him as Sam slides under the covers just as Kilgore hops off the bed.

Turning, he draws Dean to his chest and he sucks in a harsh breath. “God-d-damn, you’re like a fucking iceb-b-berg.”

“We’ll warm up this way,” Sam says. He’s going to get sweaty again, but this is a necessary part of it and he’d be lying if he said he didn’t like the way Dean’s rooting against him, trying to burrow into him for the warmth lying beneath the surface chill of Sam’s skin.

Kilgore paces around the room for a minute or two and then manages to wedge himself in the space Dean left behind when he pressed up against Sam. Soon the dog’s going to be far too big to even manage that much. Sam thinks that in the name of generosity and keeping Dean happy, they can get two beds still and Kilgore can have one all to himself.

He smiles when, after a couple of minutes, Dean loops an arm around his waist and snuffles gently as he starts to warm up and consequently starts to doze off again. Sam blinks lazily in the grey morning light and remembers Wisconsin as he strokes a hand down Dean’s back, careful to avoid his wounds from the Twam’stren the night before.

As Dean begins to snore, Sam slowly becomes aware of the _itch_ he’s growing so familiar with of late starting up so, so faintly. His fingertips tingle and he can almost feel the handle of a knife in his palm as he closes his eyes and pantomimes sleeping. He can manage it for now, but soon it’ll grow so big and insistent that he can’t ignore it.

Sam looks forward to that very much.


	4. Chapter 4

After Maine, Sam thinks that everything will be okay or at least back on the right track. They move on to a run of the mill poltergeist hunt in Four Dice, Arkansas after that. When they take a break from hunting down bones, Sam hunts down Bradley Morrison, the good ol’ boy who tried to put the moves on Dean. That shit’s always tricky in a small town and unfortunately for Bradley, he picked the wrong guy’s brother to try it with. Bradley is found four days later in a little _crick_ on the outskirts of his property, nine millimeter gunshot wounds running the length of his spine—a bullet for every other vertebra. Sam always did excel at anatomy.

They wander off to Oklahoma City after Arkansas and Sam gets his first apartment job there. He follows the girl home and cuts her heart out when he’s done with her. He throws her heart in a garbage can and leaves her naked, butchered body spread out on top of her kitchen table. He’s pleased with that bit of work; he used real finesse there.

The whole time, no one ever bleats about a possible serial killer crossing state lines and killing across the entire map. That’s because Sam understands a few things, namely that in order to avoid suspicion, variation is necessary. Sticking to a pattern is an excellent way to get one’s ass busted or barring that, it will at least get the Feds on the trail. Besides, variety is the spice of life and Sam enjoys thinking up new ways to take out his victims. It started out so simple, but he’s a fine example of how things evolve and grow. He did it almost out necessity to begin with, but now he enjoys it, too and likes to keep things lively, so to speak.

He’s not burdened with the mommy (or daddy or grandma or cousin Josh) issues some serial killers seem to have. He doesn’t have a _compulsion_ to arrange the bodies in such a way that they resemble famous pieces of art. He doesn’t bind-torture-kill (okay, he did that once, but it was for kicks, nothing else) and never has he once felt the need to tie pantyhose in a big, loopy bow around someone’s neck. Sam is the very best of the best kinds of killers—he does it seemingly randomly, he keeps things mixed up so there is no concrete thread to link victimology and he always, _always_ cleans up after himself.

If he has a signature at all then his cleanliness is it. He leaves no trace, no evidence and even though it may be hot to do so, he even wears long sleeves and a coat a lot of the time in case they try to claw him. Having DNA found under some girl’s fingernails would be a pisser. There’s one that tries to bite his face, so he pulls all of her teeth out while she’s still alive to teach her a lesson, but that’s neither here nor there.

Kilgore’s growing up and every day they work with him more and more, teaching the dog to be a damn good hunter. He’s responsive and smart, he dotes on both Sam and Dean with a loyalty that’s really kind of fascinating and seems to tickle Dean to no end. Dean loves his dog a lot and Sam knows it, so even more than before, the jealous little thoughts of killing the dog to have all of Dean’s attention are pushed aside. Hell, Sam even likes Kilgore in his way—as much as he can truly _like_ another living thing anyway. He really is _useful_ and Sam can appreciate that. So, yes, things are going very well, Sam thinks.

Then Dean, ever difficult and determined decides _for_ Sam that he needs his soul back. They’ve went around and around on the topic, but until Dean fucks off and makes his deal with Death, Sam was of the mind that eventually, Dean would shut the fuck up about it and deal with Sam the way he is. It’s a bitter thought that skulks around Sam’s mind that night in Bobby’s junkyard: Dean _can’t_ cope with it; he can’t cope with feeling like he’s letting a monster wearing Sam’s face into his bed almost every night.

And they say sociopaths are the ones who operate under their own self interest and no others. Right. On that one, Sam thinks he’s going to have to call bullshit.

He crouches in the darkness and waits for Bobby to make his next move, following Sam’s carefully laid trail like Hansel and Gretel after a bunch of bloody breadcrumbs. He thinks about how Castiel doesn’t even think it’s a good idea to give Sam his soul back. No one listens though, Dean and Bobby both insist that this is for his _own good_ and Sam wonders where in blue hell they got that idea because haven’t they been listening? He heard Castiel that night just like he heard Balthazar and just like Sam himself _knows_. Bobby is really his only chance here.

In the end, Sam loses his battle for independence and gets his soul back. That’s just the way things work.

Right then his memories of loving Dean so much he’d die for him no longer matter because he’s strapped down in the goddamned panic room again; a room he hates more than anything in the whole world now and Dean put him there. _Again._ He’s the one that ruined his plan and fucked him over royally and after all Sam did for him. For fuck’s sake, he gave him a _dog_ and the panic room is how he’s repaid for that.

Then Death comes, ageless and detached, but seeming vaguely amused and he has that black doctor’s bag. Sam can hear his soul screaming through the dark, aged leather and he begs. He’s furious, but he still begs because he doesn’t want that thing inside of him, eating away at his mind like a fucking parasitic infection.

 _Don’t scratch at it_ , Death tells him about the wall that may or may not hold and then he shoves Sam’s soul back inside of him. For a moment, before that wall goes up, Sam feels the gibbering madness that waits for him in that ball of light, feels it tearing him apart.

The last thing he remembers is looking at Dean and thinking, _You’re a dead man._

Sam is sick for a long time after the reintroduction of his soul, feverish and half mad with the unceremonious way it was been crammed back into him, filling up that gored out hole in his chest with a light and heat that burns, burns, _burns_. As it reseats itself in Sam’s body, little feeler roots of soul-light spreading through him and wrapping around his cerebral cortex, his spine, all the way down to his toes and infiltrating even the smallest capillary vein, he has seizures. In his few half-awake and burning with fever moments as he tastes the blood from his bitten tongue in the back of his throat, he sees Dean. He is always there and sometimes Bobby, too or Castiel or both. But Dean, just like he’s always been, is Sam’s one true constant.

One day he wakes up with a clear head and looks up into Dean’s pale face, circles under his eyes and skin on his lips cracked from chewing at them in his worry. It’s then that Sam truly feels the love he had for his brother again. It’s so old inside of him, but still so new that it’s overwhelming. He says Dean’s name and Dean climbs onto the bed with him, Bobby just down the hall be damned. He lies with Sam, just wraps him up and holds on as Sam comes back to Earth for the first time in a long, long time.

“Welcome back, Sammy,” Dean says and squeezes him even tighter.

That was six months ago.


	5. Chapter 5

Sam remembers everything he did when he didn’t have a soul. He tries to make himself feel guilty; disgusted about it, but it doesn’t work. It _almost_ works, but then he realizes he’s forcing the feelings. Apparently, having a soul doesn’t cure the serial killer disease. Having a soul, even the way he got his back; with a wall that does itch, so, so bad in the back of his mind should’ve put a stop to it. Sometimes things just don’t work out the way people would hope though. Still, Sam thinks it’s over, he really does. While he feels no remorse for what he’s done and thinks about doing it again even, he believes he has it under control.

Dean’s the happiest he’s seen him in years, happier even than when he was with Lisa and Bobby has forgiven him for trying to murder-slash-sacrifice him. The only one who seems to suspect that there’s more to the story is Castiel. Sam has caught him watching him more than once, head cocked to the side and that puzzled look their feathered friend wears so well creasing his brow. He suspects and Sam knows it, but so far he’s kept his mouth shut and his angel radar out of Sam’s brain and that’s an upside. He wasn’t been kidding when he said he would hunt Castiel down and kill him. So long as he doesn’t put a bug in Dean’s ear about it—and Sam doesn’t think he will—then they’re good.

All good things must come to an end and they come to a grinding, crashing one in Vacherie, Louisiana. They’re working a case, typical down South voodoo related shit that’s getting really nasty—there’s some serious mojo going on in the bayou with this one, they’ve decided. It happens their third night in town while they’re out hustling pool as usual and Dean’s drunk. He’s giggly, happy-bubbly drunk; the kind of drunk where everyone he meets that night is a new friend. Sam hangs back, keeping an eye on things when he sees the dark-eyed Cajun girl give Dean’s ass a squeeze that’s way more than friendly. Then she slips a cocktail napkin with her phone number into Dean’s back pocket.

Something in the back of Sam’s mind, the part that’s deeper than the itch the wall has left behind, snaps to attention and says, _You know you want to_ in a way that isn’t words. It’s in the tightening of his fingers around his pool stick, the way his heart pumps blood a little faster through his body. It’s in the tingle that runs through his whole body. Sam’s answer is, _Yes. Yes, I do_.

Sam goes back to the motel with Dean and waits for him to pass out, which he does in short order. Then he rolls Dean’s heavily sleeping self over and plucks the napkin from his back pocket. A quick consultation with the phone book finds him the address he needs and just like that, Sam’s back in business. His supplies still lie in wait for him at the bottom of his duffel, like they knew he’d come back one day. He gets what he needs and then he’s set. It’s _easy_. It feels good to go out and do his work again.

~*~*~*~*~*~

She hardly even struggles when he claps a gloved hand over her mouth. It’s too fast for one thing, one moment she’s asleep and the next there’s a giant of a man standing over her, smothering her screams away with his palm. Sam stares down at her wide, scared eyes in the light from the tiny blue nightlight in her bedroom and thinks she is really very pretty. She’s just reaching up with one hand to try and fend him off when he guts her, easy-peasy. He shivers all over and makes a low, murmuring sound of pleasure in the back of his throat even as the stink of blood and entrails fills the room while she twitches her death throes on her sheets.

It occurs to him while he’s tossing her body in the marsh out back of her place that the itch in the back of his mind is gone. It’ll come back, Sam doesn’t delude himself, but he’s found a way to make it stop. Stands to reason, he thinks as he listens to what can only be an alligator splash into the water from the opposite bank, that if killing stopped the ache from the hole in his chest then of course it would put a temporary end to the itch in his mind. It’s all soul-related after all.

“Huh,” he says with a little smile and tilt of his head as he turns to go back inside and clean up after himself.

~*~*~*~*~*~

The itch stays away for six days after the Cajun girl, but just like he knew it would, it comes back. So Sam goes out one cold spring night in Thompson Falls, Montana and kills two squatters he noticed when they rolled into town. For extra measure, he burns down the house they were holed up in. By the time the blaze is really rip-roaring along, he’s back at the motel and is sitting at the table when the first fire truck screams by outside.

The double whammy makes the itch stop for a whole month. It comes back one evening when they’re in Zanesville, Indiana. They’re not working a case this time, just simply see-sawing back and forth across the interstates like they do in their downtime, looking for either a hunt or something to pass the time before they start sniping at each other and end up throwing down in a parking lot somewhere. It’s been happening since they were teenagers because living on top of someone all the time has that eventual effect.

He knows exactly where they’re at and he hasn’t forgotten what he intended to do all those months ago. Honestly, he still intends to do it, but while the distance isn’t far, it’s still too great for him to really risk the drive all the way to Battle Creek, Michigan and back in one night without the worry of Dean waking up to find him gone. It’s always a worry and has been since all the shit with Ruby. He has to be careful now because he’s out killing people some nights, but the worry is a minor one all things considered because he’s usually gone no more than an hour, three at the most.

Then at lunch one day Dean mentions that he may drive out to see Ben, check on how the kid’s doing. He says maybe he’ll bring Kilgore, let Ben play with him a bit because he’s still got a lot of puppy in him and would love it. That’s the moment Sam’s itch comes back again in earnest. It starts out faint, more a tickle than an outright itch, but it grows until Sam actually shakes his head like a dog with water in its ear.

Despite his best intentions to hold off and wait until they’re closer, Sam starts to plan and the next day, he buys two blue Xanax from a pill peddling junkie who lives in a trailer park outside of town. He doesn’t have to ask around much, most small towns have more junkies than big cities due in part to general boredom and lack of anything better to do.

He considers ending the guy, Wendell, because he’s seen Sam’s face, but decides against it because he’s too stoned and too stupid in general to ever put two and two together. So, Sam buys the Xanax and when he comes back to the motel, he’s got a bag of takeout from the diner across the street to effectively stall any questions Dean may have about where he’d gotten off to.

A chili bacon cheeseburger, fries, a spiked chocolate-cherry shake and four beers later Dean is passed out across the foot of their bed, snoring like he’s trying to suck the roof down. It’s only a little past six o’clock in the evening.

Sam takes his time getting Dean turned around right on the bed, stripping off his boots and over-shirts and then covering him up before he goes about getting all his gear together.

As he makes to leave, he stops with his hand on the doorknob and looks over his shoulder. Kilgore is laying on the other bed; _his_ bed, watching Sam with his bright brown eyes, long muzzle resting on his rust colored paws. Sam doesn’t understand how it all works since the dog is just a _dog_ , but he knows all the same that Kilgore knows what Sam’s been doing and is about to do again. He knows what Sam _is_. Maybe he can sense the predator in Sam, he really has no idea, but the awareness in the dog’s eyes tells Sam all he needs to know.

He presses a finger to his lips and says, “Shh.”

Kilgore wags his nub of a tail. Animals, Sam knows, don’t judge and he appreciates that. That’s one thing he hasn’t done since he got his soul back either—he hasn’t killed another animal. Of all the shit he did when he was soulless, that is the one thing that actually makes him sick. At least he spared the fish, he thinks with a snort as he steps out into the night.

~*~*~*~*~*~

It’s 118 miles between Zanesville and Battle Creek, that’s nearly two hours one way; four back and forth with an overall roundtrip of 236 miles from one town line to the other, plus any extra mileage to the actual destination. 

By the time Sam makes it to Battle Creek it’s after nine o’clock and he has to wait over an hour outside of Lisa and Ben’s (and used to be Dean’s) house. He’s sweating and antsy sitting in the dark and when the final light in the house goes out, he lets out a sigh of relief. The downside is that he’s going to have to wait at least another hour before they’re good and asleep. Sam knows from Dean that sometimes Lisa takes an Ambien to help her rest, but it isn’t common and he’s not going to count on that tonight. To do so would just be arrogant.

Finally, he creeps from the shadows at around half past midnight, the gun he took from the motel room a heavy, reassuring weight at the small of his back and slips up the walk into the shadows of the front porch. It’s bold going in the front door like this, but Sam isn’t too worried. It’s a sleepy little suburban neighborhood and he’s quiet as a mouse anyway, his whole life has taught him how to be. As long as he’s careful, careful and oh-so quiet while he’s working, he thinks everything will be all right. With that in mind, he bends down and picks the lock in the dark, working by feel alone.

Once he’s in the house, he remembers that they probably have an alarm system and turns to find the glowing keypad by the door beaming at him. But there are no sirens blaring, no flashing lights and it dawns on Sam that Lisa hasn’t set the alarm. Now that Dean’s gone out their lives almost completely, she’s started to relax back into just living a normal life and well, isn’t that a pity. Sam shakes his head and thinks that maybe they should’ve listened to Dean a little better when he told them something would come after them eventually. Sam is some _one_ , but the warning remains the same: he’s come after them. While Dean surely hadn’t meant Sam when he told them all that, his words are like a prophecy all the same.

Sam shakes his head and smiles at his stroke of luck and then moves on to find the stairs. He begins his silent way up to the second floor where his quarry lays sleeping, unaware.

He goes into Ben’s room first, knowing where it’s at from watching them turn in for the night and slips inside the kid’s room. Stars and planets glow on the ceiling and walls, painting everything with a faint, eerie greenish glow. There’s more than enough light for Sam to see by and avoid the general clutter left behind by a young boy.

He stands beside Ben’s bed, looking down at him and he knows that when Dean finds out they’re dead—and he has no doubt he will find out about Ben and Lisa—he’s going to be devastated. Sam will be there for him though, offering any comfort and solace he can. He _is_ sorry, in a way, but itches must be scratched and the competition needs to be eliminated. Sam doesn’t really see them as such any longer, but the ghost of that is still there and the itch, goddamnit to hell, is an awful rat clawing in the back of his mind.

Besides, Sam never has liked kids that much anyway. Reaching to the small of his back, Sam takes out Dean’s favorite handgun and presses the muzzle to the center of Ben’s forehead. On one hand, Sam recognizes how cruel it is to kill the boy with Dean’s gun. On the other, he wonders why he can’t have a sense of humor about things. Or maybe it’s a skewed sense of irony, but it’s _humorous_ irony, he will maintain that. Sam has learned that having a soul back does not guarantee anything resembling a sense of compassion. He thinks that may’ve died in him long before his soul was ever left in the cage.

He’s got a silencer on the gun, but the faint _pop_ it makes when he pulls the trigger still makes Sam suck in a breath like he’s in ecstasy. As he looks down at Ben’s dying body, the way the blood stains his sheets darker than black, Sam remembers Dean calling him a monster and thinks that he was right. He just said it too soon; that was all. He’s okay with that though, being a monster fits and the itch has already receded some.

He walks out of Ben’s room, gun settled at the small of his back once again and the muzzle warm against his skin. As he heads for Lisa’s bedroom, he wonders how much damage Lucifer did to his brain when he was rattling around in there. Sam doesn’t think he necessarily broke anything, but he definitely knocked some shit loose for damned sure. It’s kind of like people who have strokes and turn out pretty okay aside from the fact when they come out of it, they’ve got a nasty little case of schizophrenia to help them along from there on out. It’s that kind of knocking loose of things.

Sam’s not schizophrenic, but he’s definitely _something_. As he pushes open the door to Lisa’s bedroom, he pushes the thoughts aside; they’re nothing new and he can’t say he cares one whit about them anyway. He is what he is and he finds that incredibly easy to accept now that he’s been through so much other shit. Taking up murder as a hobby of sorts seems small in comparison.

Lisa is asleep on her back, snoring softly and Sam has half a moment to wonder if Dean is still doing the same. He hopes like hell that he is, otherwise he’s going to have a lot of explaining to do when he gets back. Like he did with Ben, Sam stands beside the bed looking down at Lisa and thinks about how Dean slept in this bed with her, albeit briefly since he came back to Sam—in a small way at the time—not long after they moved here. It makes him feel kind of sick to know that they fucked in this bed. Then he wonders if Dean stood here just like he is now when he bailed out to try and say goodbye after Sam let him get turned that time. 

As he straddles Lisa’s body, one leg lightly going over her side, the other foot braced on the floor, Sam realizes he doesn’t much care. Killing Lisa is way more interesting to him right now. When he settles some of his weight down on her abdomen, she wakes up and Sam says, “Hi, Lisa.” He’s smiling when he says it.

She starts to speak, starts to ask him what’s going on, but then Sam wraps his hands around her neck and starts strangling her. She thrashes under him and he squeezes even harder, gradually applying pressure and taking his time with it. He leans in closer to get a better look at her. Lisa’s eyes are wide and her mouth is open as she tries in vain to draw in oxygen that he is cutting off more and more with every increase of pressure against her windpipe. Sam thinks her teeth are way, way too white; definitely over-bleached. Then he hears a tiny _snap_ from somewhere deep in the column of her throat. Bye-bye, hyoid bone.

Lisa gasps and wheezes, the one arm Sam doesn’t have pinned flapping as she attempts to claw his face even though her strength is flagging. She brushes Sam’s cheek and he makes a snarling sound, but her fingers barely graze him; there’s not even a sting of pain left behind. It takes him a few minutes to completely strangle her; it’s not like in the movies, but he knew that. She finally dies and he holds on a couple more minutes to be sure, to feel the warmth leaving her skin.

Sam finally sits back and sucks in a satisfied breath before arming sweat off his face. He moves off the bed and crouches down beside it, staring into Lisa’s wide open, dead eyes. She seems to be staring at him, but the stare isn’t accusing like Sam thought it would be. It’s more like a glare of jealous defeat. At least he’d like to think so.

Leaning in close, Sam whispers into her ear, “Game over, _I_ win.”

Then he sits back and enjoys the feeling of _not_ feeling the itch in the back of his mind.

Looking at Lisa’s dead body in the pale light from the streetlamp outside her bedroom window, Sam thinks her skin looks like velvet. He wants to touch her, see if it feels that way, too, but he doesn’t because he knows better. He can’t take off his gloves and risk leaving any kind of trace behind him.

She hardly even seems real to Sam anymore and then he really, truly thinks about that. Dead bodies are no longer _people_ , he’s learned that over the past year he’s spent doing this thing of his. When a person is sleeping or just being very still, usually all it takes is one quick glance to tell whether they’re _alive_ or not. It’s not even necessary to see their chests rising and falling with breath a lot of the time. It’s just a sense that what is being observed is a living being.

The dead are still in a completely different way. They’re _empty_ , just hulls left behind like a locust in the summer. It is the absence of the soul. Sam has been one of the walking dead; a breathing corpse and he understands the hollowed out nature of the dead. He empathizes and sometimes he even envies them their special brand of stillness because he never got to have that. He’s been alive and yet, still dead, they’re just _dead_. Somehow, sometimes anyway, that just doesn’t seem fair. He’s not going to go out and blow his brains out anytime soon or anything though, that would be stupid.

He still feels close to the dead in a way that he can longer truly feel close to the living. It’s like they’re all a part of some secret club, but he keeps getting his membership revoked. Yet, he’s still the only one who could ever talk about it, but like Fight Club, this isn’t to be discussed. 

What Sam has learned is that the dead are no longer people; they’re just _things_. He can understand that very well indeed, he thinks as he rises from his crouched position beside Lisa’s bed to finish up his business in the house and to let her get on with the business of being dead.

~*~*~*~*~*~

He makes it back to the motel around 5:30 or 6:00 in the morning and is barely back for an hour before Dean stirs and sits up in bed.

“What the hell?” he asks, voice hoarse sounding as he scrubs his face.

“You conked out, man,” Sam says. “I think your metabolism is getting a little too old for chili cheeseburgers.”

“Chili _bacon_ cheeseburgers,” Dean corrects as he rises from the bed and snatches Sam’s coffee from him for a swallow. “And you never get too old for those. Food of the gods… well… the gods that don’t eat people anyway.”

Sam laughs and takes his coffee away from Dean. “You’ve got a cup right there, quit drinking mine.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Dean says and picks up his own lukewarm coffee. “You sleep any?”

“Like a baby.” Sam does feel wonderfully refreshed and must look it, too, because Dean seems to believe him.


	6. Chapter 6

It’s another two months and four more bodies for Sam before Dean hears about Lisa and Ben. He ended up not trying to get in touch with her after all when they were in Zanesville and Sam thought it was partly because he thought Lisa would tell him no. He doesn’t know all the details about how things went so completely tits up with them, but he knows enough to put two and two together.

They’re walking across a sunny park in Colony, Oregon when Bobby calls with the bad news. He heard about it from Rufus, who heard about it from some guy named Judah and then did his own digging to confirm the information before he called Dean to tell him.

Sam doesn’t know what they’re talking about at first, but then he sees Dean stumble as he drops Kilgore’s leash and hears his pained, “No, Bobby, that can’t be right… _no_.” Then he understands that the bomb has been dropped. He knew it would happen eventually.

He grabs Dean when stumbles again and takes his phone from him. “Bobby, hey, what’s going on?”

Dean struggles in his grasp, already crying and Sam just holds on tighter as Bobby fills him in.

“I’m so damned sorry,” Bobby says. “I wish I’d’ve known sooner then maybe… hell. I don’t know. This is sad fucking mess here.”

Dean’s saying, “No,” again and Sam half drags him over to a bench to make him sit down before he falls down.

“I know.” Sam’s voice is strained. Good, good, make it believable. _Sell it_. “Was it… was it our kind of thing? You know.”

“Naw and that’s the real pisser,” Bobby says. “Was a B-and-E, some asshole busted in their house, killed them in their beds and robbed the woman and kid blind.”

“Fuck,” Sam says. He remembers that her skin looked like velvet. Beside him, Dean makes a truly pitiful sound that twists something hard deep inside of Sam and he frowns.

“Yep, pretty much,” Bobby says and gives a sad, sad sigh. “Of course the damned police ain’t got a single lead either.”

Sam breathes a small sigh of relief and scoffs. “Of course not.”

“He all right?” Bobby finally asks. Sam knows he can hear Dean; knows that he isn’t all right at all.

“No, but he will be,” Sam says. Right now, he’s not so sure, but he thinks with time it’ll be true enough.

“I’m gonna find who did this and when I do, I’m gonna fucking kill them,” Dean says through clenched teeth as he shakes with his tears.

“I gotta go now,” Sam says.

Bobby grunts his understanding in Sam’s ear and he snaps Dean’s phone closed. Sam sits beside him in the sunny park as Kilgore licks Dean’s hands and arms; offering doggy comfort. He hugs the dog with one arm and when reaches out blindly with his other hand toward Sam, Sam takes it, linking their fingers together. They’ve never, not even once, done this before in public. But when Dean squeezes his hand so tight the bones grind together, Sam thinks he could get used to it. They sit there until Dean’s all cried out and then Sam tugs him gently up from the bench.

“Let’s go,” he says and starts leading him back to the car. Dean comes along, so wrung out that it has left him uncommonly silent and docile.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Sam obligingly goes along with Dean after he’s gotten his head back together enough to function semi-normally again and helps him try and find Lisa and Ben’s murderers. Yes, plural. The police suspect that it was a two man job because the MO was so different in each of their murders. They think that whoever shot Ben was just someone who was probably along for the ride and maybe following the orders of their partner. They think that whoever killed Lisa was more sadistic and very sexually dominating—hence the face-to-face strangulation. They posit that maybe her killer even treated the robbery portion of the evening as a side gig to the actual killing.

Without even realizing it the police have totally exonerated Sam as a potential suspect in Dean’s eyes, not that he had ever been one to begin with. Dean is, of course, wanted for questioning in regards to the murders, but even when he’s in town, no one sees him. Sam masquerades as an F.B.I. agent all on his own to get the necessary files for them to look over. He reads them in the car after signing them out and has himself a good laugh over their half-assed detective work before he schools his face back into an expression of seriousness and solemnity and heads back to the motel where Dean’s waiting.

They spend a month in Battle Creek chasing down these phantom burglar-murderers. It takes a hell of a lot of work, but Sam digs around on his own and finally finds two patsies to point the finger at. He slowly and carefully leads Dean along to making the conclusion on his own and when he does, they start planning.

Their last night in town, they go to a little shotgun-style house in the poor part of town and knock on the door. Dean decks the man who answers it and they bull their way inside so Dean can claim his vengeance. By the time they blow out of Michigan, two innocent—of those two crimes at least—men are dead and Dean seems to feel a lot better. There are pieces of two more bodies rotting in abandoned buildings all over the city, but Sam’s not about to tell Dean about those.


	7. Chapter 7

It’s another four months before Dean catches him. It was bound to happen and Sam has known that all along. He’s had a damn good run of it though and by this point, he’s not going to stop anyway, soul or not.

He’s got the guy in an old warehouse when Dean walks in, gun by his side. It’s a cliché, but Sam had brought him all the way out here to take his time and really get into it. He’s always been a fan of wet-work, even back in the days before he would ever consciously admit to it. That, at least, has never changed. He only uses a gun because they’re functional, but honestly, Sam has always preferred knives or his bare hands. He really likes to get up close. It’s just spilled over into his killing like this, but that part was pretty much inevitable.

Dean must’ve followed him, but when Sam sees him step into view, he plays it cool. He’s going to find out sometime and he’s known that for months now. The only thing he need never know about and Sam made sure he would never even suspect, are Ben and Lisa. Dean tries to play it off. Sam knows this tack, he’s going to try and string Sam along until the right moment and then he will spring it on Sam, the big reveal that he knows what’s _really_ going on. He’s done it to Sam since they were kids.

“What are we dealing with? Demon?” Dean looks over at the man strapped and gagged to an old work table.

“No,” Sam answers calmly.

“Ghoul?”

“Nope,” Sam says.

He rocks on his heels a little. Dean’s going to pounce on him in a second here and he knows it. He’s got a couple of seconds though because Dean always gives him a chance to come clean, too.

“What then?” 

“Paramedic.” Sam can tell by the slight widening of Dean’s eyes that he didn’t expect Sam to tell him the truth about this. Why should he have? Sam lies like a fucking rug and has been doing so for years. He’s well aware that he’s not terribly trustworthy.

Sam knows Dean has been getting suspicious of some of his behavior for about a month—since they left a little burg outside Savannah, Georgia. Sam hadn’t gotten sloppy, but there had been something of a witness—a half blind old woman that he hadn’t accounted for and he’d had to kill her quick and dirty. The murder had been so brutal it had made national headlines. It really had been overkill, especially since she was so old, but Sam had been furious at almost getting caught and he’d taken that anger out on her. He’d been on edge until they left town after that one, trying to remember if he’d left any trace behind or not.

That was the moment Dean had started watching him closer and watching the evening news every single day if they stayed in a place longer than 24 hours. It took him a lot longer to get wise that there was something going on in Sam’s head that had nada to do with demon blood or anything supernatural, but was still very, very wrong.

Sam knows that telling him, _I’ll stop, I promise_ , is a lie neither of them will believe. He may’ve been able to quit again after the first or second time; could’ve maybe even found a new way to scratch the itch in the back of his mind after without actually _scratching_ it. After the fourth and the fifth (Ben and Lisa, respectively) and now good old number twenty six—or eight, depending on how you want to count it—Sam knows he will _never_ stop unless someone makes him. The only way to do that would be to kill him and he can’t see that happening, all things considered. No one puts as much work into a person as Dean has put into Sam just to turn around and blow their shit away. He is Sam, too, whole and in one piece. It’s just that sometimes, this kind of story— _their_ kind of story—doesn’t have a completely happy ending.

“There’s always a catch, huh?” Sam asks. He can see the same thoughts flitting around behind Dean’s eyes. He’s thought it more than once and now that he knows, of course Dean is going to be thinking it, too.

Dean doesn’t speak, he just shakes his head and looks aggrieved. 

“You might want to move,” Sam says.

Dean does look at him for that. “What?” He jumps when Sam stabs the paramedic in the carotid artery then yanks the blade across the man’s throat, ripping through it more than cutting.

Blood sprays them both and Sam smiles at the sound of the hot, red wetness splattering him because he doesn’t have to worry about ruining his clothes now. Sam’s learned a way to avoid getting gore on his clothes—a rain poncho with a hood. They’re dirt cheap and can be bought at damn near any truck stop or well-stocked gas station from San Francisco to Montpelier.

Dean’s not so lucky. He stands there, frozen in place and sickly pale. Blood drips down his face, neck, arms. Yes, he _suspected_ Sam was up to no good, even suspected—much as he wished he hadn’t—that it was something like this, but now he’s got drippy, twitching, gurgling; soon to be cold, hard confirmation. For that, Sam is truly regretful and he means it with all of his heart this time. It just doesn’t change anything.

“Sam… Oh, God, _Sam_!” Dean sounds like he’s choking on the words. Then he doubles over, hands on his knees and pukes between his feet.

He can deal with monster guts and half eaten bodies laying on a slab in some morgue, but he cannot deal with seeing Sam kill innocent civilians and _like_ it. Sam knows all of that and again—he really is sorry, but right now he’s also annoyed. Dean’s puke is one more thing he’s going to have to clean up. Just because this is an old warehouse doesn’t mean no one will ever look in here and if they do then the cops will be called, etcetera, etcetera; so clean up is still a necessity.

“You shouldn’t have followed me.” The look of wide-eyed shock and fear on Dean’s face makes Sam realize how that sounded. “Will you stop? Jesus, Dean, I’m not going to kill _you_. You just shouldn’t have followed me.”

“Wh—how—” Dean tries and can’t find the words. He’s in shock or something like it. Finally, he roars, “ _Goddamnit_ , Sam, how could you do this?!”

“Easy,” Sam answers. Then he shrugs and glances down at the bloody floor. There’s enough he can see a faint, ghostly reflection of himself in the red-black puddle. “I’m sorry, you don’t know how sorry I am, but I… this is me. I think, maybe, it’s always been me.”

“No,” Dean says and shakes his head vehemently. “No, it is _not_ you. You’ve got to stop this before it gets out of hand. You’ve _got_ to.”

“It’s already out of hand,” Sam turns to look at the paramedic’s body. His skin looks less like velvet and more like vinyl because of the shiny wet coating of blood on it.

“He’s what, your third or fourth?” Sam hears him choke back another retch at the idea of it being that many.

“Twenty fourth,” Sam supplies, careful to subtract Ben and Lisa from the body count. Just in case.

“ _What?!_ ” Dean’s voice is sharp with horrified surprise. “How long have you been doing this?”

“Over a year now,” Sam answers him.

“Oh, God,” Dean says again.

Sam can’t help his soft huff of laughter. “I don’t know why you keep saying his name, you know as well as I do that God’s not listening and he doesn’t care.”

When Sam finally turns away from the body, Dean’s standing there with his arms wrapped around himself, chewing on his bottom lip. Surprisingly—and not—he isn’t pointing the gun at Sam’s head. There’ll probably come a day when he does it, thinking that it’s the only way to stop Sam (about which he’d be correct). He’ll rationalize it, convince himself that he needs to do it to save innocent peoples’ lives. Dean won’t follow through though and Sam knows it as well as Dean does. They can kill until whole world is a ghost town, but they will never kill each other.

“Why? At least tell me that,” Dean says.

“It makes the itch stop, for a little while anyway,” Sam says. “Before that, it made the hole stop hurting.”

Dean has no response, he just makes some kind of strangled sound that he cuts off before it really gets started. He sits down on the dirty concrete floor, just missing the puddle of his vomit. Sam goes to him and reaches out a hand, but Dean pulls away from him with a shudder. Only then does Sam realize there’s blood dripping off the fingers of his black leather gloves. 

He leaves him then to go clean up and let Dean process. He’s going to be upset for a while, but with time maybe he’ll adjust. Sam knows that isn’t true, not exactly, not if he’s being honest. But eventually Dean will just leave it alone and look the other way. That’s closer to right, Sam thinks, at least until the day he thinks he’s going to kill Sam to save him (and others). Sam doesn’t see what the big deal is, he’s going straight back to hell when he _finally_ dies anyway. Dean may get to heaven eventually, but Sam never will and he knows it. He’s far, far too tainted to ever walk through those pearly gates.

“Come on,” he says softly to Dean when he’s got everything cleaned up. Dean shakes his head, but then climbs slowly to his feet. He looks at Sam and Sam can see the hurt and sadness in his eyes, but he can’t change that anymore than he can change being a murderer.

“I am sorry,” he tells Dean when they walk out into the night.

“I know, Sammy,” Dean says.

Sam believes him because of the way he’s looking at Sam now. Sad and worried; afraid, but not like he’s the Other Sam that Dean had turned him into before he got his soul back.

With that in mind, Sam leans down and kisses Dean. He stiffens at first, going horribly, heartbreakingly rigid for a moment. Then, with a soft sound of sorrow, Dean relaxes and threads his fingers into Sam’s hair, finally kissing him back.

Sam can taste tears in his mouth when he does and he starts to hum softly inside Dean’s mouth as they kiss, the flavor of it salty-sweet. _You are my sunshine, my only sunshine. You make me happy when skies are grey…_ It’s been a while since he’s hummed that song or even thought about it, but that’s okay, too. Just like he told Lisa, he won because after all this time, he has Dean’s whole heart again and he knows it.

He can feel it.


End file.
